


Truth or Dare

by AMidnightDreary



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Acceptance, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Avenger Loki (Marvel), Awesome Jarvis (Iron Man movies), Bottom Loki (Marvel), Bottom Tony Stark, Childhood Trauma, Denial, Developing Relationship, Didn't Know They Were Dating, Domestic Avengers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, Flirting, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Hand Jobs, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Insecure Loki (Marvel), Insecure Tony Stark, Insomnia, Internalized racism, Intimacy, Jotunn Loki (Marvel), Lack of Communication, Loki (Marvel) Does What He Wants, Loki (Marvel) Feels, Loki (Marvel) Gets a Hug, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, M/M, Massage, Minor Injuries, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Oblivious Tony Stark, Odin (Marvel)'s A+ Parenting, Panic Attacks, Pining, Porn with Feelings, Post-Avengers (2012), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Tony Stark, Resolved Sexual Tension, Rough Sex, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Thor (Marvel) is a Good Bro, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs Sleep, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Touch-Starved, Trust Issues, Unrequited Love, commitment issues, idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-29 13:21:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 51,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20436719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMidnightDreary/pseuds/AMidnightDreary
Summary: It all starts with a spontaneous ice age in the tower.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bloodamber](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodamber/gifts).

> Heyo, bloodamber! Here's your gift! You wanted Loki accepting his Jotun heritage with Tony's help (which, awesome prompt, by the way, thank you so much for that!) and I hope this covers that. ❤
> 
> I'm sorry I turned your prompt into this 50k long monstrosity, but. It just happened. There was nothing I could do. I hope you don't mind. xD
> 
> Also: Thanks so much to **Rabentochter** for letting me rant about this _constantly_ and betaing and helping me with stuff and, you know, just for existing in general. Who knows what I'd do without you. ❤
> 
> The third chapter will be up in the evening, the last two tomorrow! Enjoy!

“_I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.”_

\- Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

❄

In moments like this, Tony wondered if it had been a good idea to change the name of his tower. “Stark Tower” didn't only sound better, everything it implied also promised less headaches, less Disapproving Frowns™, less ruined toasters - just, you know. Less of everything that came with housing five _other_ so-called heroes that attracted not only so-called enemies, but also every possible other kind of conflict more than anything else.

It wasn't that Tony didn't _like_ them. He did, which was a surprise for everyone involved. And he himself had suggested making this into the “Avengers Tower” and he himself had given each of them their own floor, so technically he had only himself to blame for this. He didn't really want to throw them out, either - they were a good team (most of the time, at least) and a not that small part of Tony liked being a member of this team, liked knowing that these people would have his back, no matter how much he annoyed them.

But in moments like this, he did wonder.

When Clint had called him in the middle of the night, using the comm of the tower after he had somehow managed to convince JARVIS that it was an “emergency” and that it could “not wait until Tony's done with sciencing”, the only thing Tony had wanted was to tell his teammate to suck it up and, yes, wait until Tony was done with _sciencing._ But then JARVIS had given him his own version of a Disapproving Frown™ - Disapproving Silence™ - and eventually Tony had relented. Which was why he was here now, freezing to death on his way up to Clint's floor.

“Hey, J, be a good AI and crank up the heating a bit, would you?”

“_The temperature is at a perfectly even sixty-four degrees, sir, just like you prefer._ _But of course I -”_

“Uh, buddy, it's definitely colder in here.”

JARVIS actually hesitated, which was never a good sign. “_Not as far as I can tell._”

Tony frowned. He could see his breath, for fuck's sake. In the elevator. “I'm afraid you're picking up some wrong info there. Check the thermostat, maybe something is - _oh_ my god.”

The door of the elevator had just opened, and Tony had been hit by a goddamn _wave_ of cold air. He clenched his teeth to keep them from clattering and wrapped his arms around himself, then went to find Clint.

The archer already shuffled out of his bedroom when Tony approached the door, and Tony would have snorted a laugh under different circumstances. Clint looked absolutely ridiculous; he was wearing at least three sweaters on top of each other - Tony could see the different colors peeking out at Clint's waist - and a colorful woolen hat on his head. Also several pairs of thick socks, as far as Tony could see. So, yes, he would have laughed, but as things were, Tony could only be jealous.

“Thank god,” Clint exclaimed as soon as he saw Tony, his voice tight. He was trembling a little. “What the hell is going on here? Why is it so fucking cold?”

“No idea,” Tony said and snatched Clint's hat from his head to pull it over his own. He almost regretted that when he saw that the tips of Clint's ears were already slightly blue. “But your floor seems to be somewhat of an origin, it wasn't half as cold in the elevator.”

“Your workshop is fine?” Clint followed Tony to the thermostat in his bedroom, where it was even colder.

“Yes,” Tony muttered, frowning at the temperature the thermostat displayed. “Don't lie to me, it has to be below freezing in here.”

“I think it's broken,” Clint said, which was very helpful.

“J?”

“_On it, sir. I'm afraid someone messed with my system._”

“Someone?” Clint repeated, looking confused for a second, but then his face fell and he groaned. “Oh, come on. I fucking hate magic.”

“Don't we all,” Tony drawled. “Where's Thor, JARVIS?”

“_In New Mexico, sir.”_

Which meant that they had to deal with this themselves. Tony and Clint looked at each other for a moment.

“I'm not talking to him,” Clint said then.

“Why not? This is your floor he's messing with. I'm just an uninvolved civilian in this case.”

“No, you're more like an impartial mediator. He wouldn't listen to me, anyway, but to you -”

“You're just scared that he plays with your arrows again,” Tony said, but he shuffled out of the bedroom and headed for the elevators.

Clint, following behind Tony, whined. “I still have confetti in some of my boxers, Tony.”

“In your boxers? What the hell are you using your arrows for?”

Clint ignored that question. “You’re going to talk to him, right? I’m freezing my ass off here.”

“Crash on Nat’s couch,” Tony suggested as he stepped into the elevator, wanting to get out of the cold as soon as possible. Clint confronted him with a serious case of puppy dog eyes, which he had probably learned from Thor. Tony sighed. “Yeah, fine. I’ll talk to him.”

“You're the best!” Clint told him just before the doors of the elevator slid shut.

“Wow,” Tony snarked to himself. Often he didn't even get a _thank you,_ now he was already “the best”. Maybe he should have JARVIS fuck with Clint's thermostat regularly. Strengthen the team spirit and all that.

❄

See, Tony didn't only house five other so-called heroes. He also housed the brother of one of them, and that brother just happened to be a so-called villain. Or, well, a former so-called villain. Thor claimed that Loki had never _really _been a villain, that he had been “not entirely himself” and “misguided” and ”in a state of great emotional turmoil”.

Whatever that exactly meant.

It didn't even really matter, because Loki wasn't all that bad. Or not as bad as Tony had expected, at least. Loki was clever and strong, a goddamn asset, actually, and the life as an Avenger was definitely a bit easier since Loki had entered the team. Which was weird, given that he'd provided the reason the Avengers existed in the first place, but whatever. The important thing here was that, while Tony didn't fully _trust_ him, he also didn't hate him. Loki mostly kept to himself, anyway; they barely saw him.

Not that they _had_ to see him to be aware of his existence, of course. Every few weeks - or days, or hours, depending on his mood - Loki reminded them that he did live in the tower, and that he was incredibly bored.

The God of Mischief was a prankster. Big surprise, right?

It had started with Thor coming into the community kitchen one morning, his eyes wider and rounder and bluer than anyone’s eyes should ever be. Then there had been the Squeaking Shoes Incident, which they didn’t talk about because if they did, Natasha might just kill them. Next one to suffer had been Steve, who had woken up with a walking stick glued to his hand. (Tony had been the one to free him of it in the end, and he’d never laughed so much in his life.) Besides Thor, Clint was the one who got the most attention. He got pranked pretty much every other week, and his having confetti in his boxers was one of the least annoying things. By now, they had all stopped being constantly wary, and nobody was exactly surprised when the resident trickster striked again. The pranks were always annoying, but harmless, and they occurred often enough that they had stopped feeling threatened. Everyone in the tower knew that, if they hadn’t had a room full of ducks or a fridge full of scented candles in a while, they would most likely be confronted with another ridiculous thing soon enough.

Well. Everyone except Bruce - the reason for that was obvious - _and _Tony. Tony had been pranked once and then never again.

(After every single drink in Tony’s bar had been replaced with apple juice, JARVIS had played Cotton Eye Joe everywhere Loki went, nonstop, for two weeks and six days. Loki still hummed the song now and then.)

And, somehow, that had led to the rest of the Avengers thinking that calling Tony was the best thing to do whenever Loki made a mess and couldn’t be convinced to clean it up. Which was no fun at all. But oddly enough, it worked, and for the peace in his tower and the everlasting fondness he felt for his teammates, Tony took it upon himself to go and talk to the trickster this time, too.

When he entered Thor's floor, he wasn’t particularly surprised to find that it was even colder here than it had been in Clint’s rooms. Tony was shivering, his teeth clattering, and he really regretted not stopping by at the penthouse to get himself a hoodie. And a second hat. Possibly a whole snow suit. Were that _icicles_ hanging from the ceiling?

He made a beeline for Loki’s bedroom and pointedly ignored that the handle looked a little frozen over as he knocked on the door.

Nothing.

Yeah, well. What did he expect? _Tony__, hello! It’s nice to see you, do come in. I was just knitting scarves, would you like one?_

Tony scoffed at the door and knocked again.

“Lokes, come on. Open the door. You’ve had enough fun for tonight.”

Still nothing.

“Okay, I’ll just stay here, then. You can listen to me talking and clattering my teeth the whole night if you want.”

He was being ignored.

Tony sighed. “JARVIS, your cue.”

A second later, every speaker on the floor started to blast _Frosty the Snowman_. Tony inspected his fingers and wondered whether they were already turning blue. He didn’t need to wait long, thankfully, because after two or three minutes the door opened. Just a crack, but Tony would take what he could get.

Green eyes glared at him through that crack, thin lips pulled into a scowl that was seconds away from becoming a full-blown snarl. “What do you want?”

“There are icicles hanging from your ceiling,” Tony informed him. Loki was about to close the door again, but Tony put his foot between it and the door frame in the last second. “Rude,” he said, trying to keep his voice from quivering. “Look, I know that pranking Clint is fun and all, but this is really overdoing it a bit. Also, nobody messes with JARVIS. Or with the central heating in my tower, so -”

“I didn’t mess with anything,” Loki hissed.

“There are _icicles_ hanging from your _ceiling_,” Tony said again.

“Yes.” Loki opened the door wide now, probably because he could glare at Tony better that way. “And what does it tell you that they are hanging from _my_ ceiling as well?”

Tony found himself incapable of forming words for a moment, because he had just noticed that Loki wasn’t wearing a shirt. Which was all kinds of odd - Loki _always_ wore clothes that were high-closed; he didn’t show more skin than that of his hands and face. Something Tony really couldn’t comprehend right now.

“Why the hell are you hiding that all the time?” he asked, brows raised as his eyes wandered over Loki’s chest. Had it been a little warmer, he might have turned this into a proper flirt, just to be annoying. But given that his toes were freezing off - “You know what, nevermind. Aren’t you cold?”

“No.”

“That’s -,” Tony began, but then Loki’s earlier words registered. “Wait, are you saying that you’re not responsible for this?”

Loki was still glowering at him, but now there was also the faintest hint of… Not shame, no. Maybe a bit of contriteness, though. “Not… _not _responsible per se, but…”

Tony stared at him for a moment, then asked, “This was an accident, wasn’t it?”

“Pranking Barton is fun,” the trickster said coldly. “Making him freeze to death is not really my style.”

That was probably a yes.

“Awesome,” Tony said. “Just awesome, really. Fucking hell. Did your magic play up or what?”

“It’s none of your business.”

“What were you even trying to _achieve_?”

“I said,” Loki snapped, “it is none of your business.”

Tony tried to stay patient. He really did. But it was in the middle of the night, this was keeping him from working, and he was _freezing his goddamn ass off._ So, no, he wasn’t that good at the whole patience thing right now.

“Yeah well, this is _my_ tower, and if you cause a damned ice age in _my_ tower it _is_ my fucking business!”

Loki didn’t say anything, just pressed his lips together and glared at him.

“Look,” Tony continued, voice pinched. “I’m all for, you know, scientific freedom and all that jazz. You can do whatever the fuck you want in here, as long as it’s not hurting anybody. But this _is_ hurting people - I think Clint’s about to lose some toes - so this is not _okay_. It was an accident, fine, no problem, happens to the best of us. Just fix it.”

“I don’t know how,” Loki snapped, and Tony was so surprised that his teeth stopped clattering for a second.

“What - what do you mean, you don’t know how?”

“I mean,” Loki said, sounding very annoyed, “that I do not _know_ how to fix it. I tried. It didn’t -”

He made a frustrated sound and suddenly pushed open the door, already turning on his heels.

“Uh,” Tony said, looking after him as the god walked away.

“Are you coming, Stark?”

Tony blinked, but then followed Loki into his bedroom, trying not to slip on the ice. What was really confusing was that it wasn’t just a bedroom, but an _apartment_ \- a small one, yes, but still. They stood in something like a living room, suddenly, with a sofa and bookshelves and also a TV, and a kitchen nook in one corner. There was an open door that let Tony get a glimpse of what must be Loki’s actual bedroom, and another one that, so Tony thought, probably led to a bathroom.

This didn’t really fit into the room plan of this floor. And Tony should have known, he’d _designed_ the room plan. He forgot all about the ice age for a moment.

“This is some - some serious Tardis shit right here. Loki. You're not the Do-doctor, are you? 'Cause that w-would be awesome.”

“Do not talk nonsense in my presence, please.”

“How did you _do_ this?”

“Take an educated guess,” Loki drawled, making his way into his bedroom.

“Magic,” Tony guessed. “Ri-right.”

He followed Loki, trying to ignore the ice on the floor, the coldness that seeped through the soles of his shoes. He also had to dodge some icicles that were indeed hanging from the ceiling. Loki stopped in front of the thermostat that was fastened to the wall right next to the bedroom door. It was frozen over, just like the rest of the room. It claimed that it was steady sixty degrees in here, but then there would hardly be frost on the bed sheets.

“I tried to make it colder,” Loki said sulkily. “But this _device_ wouldn’t make it as cold as I wanted, so I helped it along a little, and I - I might have gone a little overboard.”

“Mi-might have, yes,” Tony agreed. “An-n-d you ca-can’t undo i-it?”

Loki frowned at him. “Why are you stuttering?”

“Because I’m fu-fucking co_-cold_!”

Loki’s frown deepened, then he made a weird hand gesture and plucked a sweater out of freaking nowhere. He offered it to Tony, but Tony just stared at it - still not fond of being handed things, especially not by someone who seemed like the type to put itching powder in other people’s clothes. A few awkward seconds passed, then Loki huffed and actually threw the sweater at Tony, who caught it reflexively. He hesitated, but after Loki gave him a look that _promised _itching powder if he didn’t stop getting on the mage’s nerves, Tony put it on. It was too big for him, the sleeves far too long, and he had the weird feeling that Loki had just given him one of his own hoodies. The god just wanted to mess with him, probably. And Tony didn’t care anyway, because the moment he pulled it on warmth dribbled down his spine, all the way into his almost frozen toes, He gasped at the feeling.

Well. This wasn't a scarf. This was _better._

“Oh, that’s - er. Nice. I mean - thanks.”

Loki ignored him. “I can make all the ice vanish, but this thing keeps making it come back.”

“The thermostat?”

Loki made a face that probably meant something along the lines of _duh_, even though Loki was of course above saying things like that.

Tony sighed. “Your magic probably messed it up. Okay then, uh, you do your vanishing thing and I’ll try to fix the thermostat.” _Or dismantle it_, Tony added silently, thinking wistfully of all the toasters Thor had ruined. Tony had managed to save only some of them. He sighed. “I’ll just have to get some tools, then -”

He broke off when Loki suddenly held a tool kit in his hands that had certainly not been there a second before. The mage dropped it on the floor between them. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll take care of the ice.”

Tony nodded, and Loki walked away, throwing a last smoldering glance at the thermostat. He positioned himself in the center of the room and looked down at the floor that was still covered in ice. Only now Tony noticed that Loki’s feet were bare and - and blue. Not blue because they were freezing, just… _blue; _a deep azure that stood out against the almost white of the ice. Black-nailed toes curled against the ground and slowly the blue faded again, leaving Loki’s feet as pale and white as the rest of him. The god sighed and rocked back and forth on his heels a little. Something like fume, dark green and glowing, seemed to drop from his feet and into the ice, which quickly began cracking and… disappearing.

Tony raised his brows and slowly turned back to the thermostat. Magic was _so_ weird. (And not at all fascinating.)

He had to replace the thermostat in the end. Loki wanted to keep the old one and Tony let him, even though he had the feeling that that was a very bad idea.

❄

That proved to be true already two days - or rather nights - later.

Tony was, once again, unable to sleep, but since he hadn’t slept properly for almost three days now, his brain was starting to feel a little mushy. He had stopped working on his latest project about an hour ago and was now playing fetch with the bots, not actually caring about the mess they made in the process.

“_Sir_,” JARVIS interrupted their game at some point, “_I’m afraid Mr. Liesmith is doing it again._”

“Doing what again? The freezing act?”

“_Yes. He seems to be using the broken thermostat._”

Tony sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I shouldn't have let him keep that.”

“_I agree_,” JARVIS said in a kind tone that would have been teasing if the AI hadn't been so “well behaved”. Which he was only superficially. “_But at least it appears to be confined to his rooms this time._”

“Okay,” Tony said. “Then asking him what the hell he's doing is not exactly needed.”

“_Not as such, no._”

“Huh. I'm gonna ask him what the hell he's doing.”

“_Of course, sir.”_

❄

And so Tony found himself on the way to Loki's door again. He had to make it through Thor and Loki’s shared apartment first, though, and before Loki’s bedroom door was even in sight, Tony was nearly killed by a certain hammer that he only managed to dodge in the very last second. He fell on his ass in the process, making a sound that was definitely _not_ a shriek and then shouting, “What the _actual fuck_, Point Break - it's me!”

“Oh,” Thor said, standing in the hallway that led to his bathroom. He was still half-asleep, judging by the facts that he wore pajama pants and was rubbing his eyes, but he did hurry to Tony's side to help him get back on his feet. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to try to decapitate you.”

“Yeah, that's reassuring, thanks.”

Thor gave him a sheepish grin that somehow turned into an impressive yawn. “Did something happen?”

“Happen? No. Nothing.”

Thor blinked and held out his hand, calling Mjölnir back to him. The hammer had left a rather big hole in the sofa table. “Why are you sneaking around here at this time, then?”

“I, uh -” So, how to say this without coming across weird. “Wanted to see what your brother is up to?”

Thor frowned. “In the middle of the night?”

_Yup, great job, that definitely didn't sound weird at all_. “Well, yeah, he's - er. We had some sort of, you know, _incident_ while you were gone - when did you get back, anyway?”

“A few hours ago,” Thor replied, then cocked his head to one side. “Did Loki prank somebody again?”

“Yes,” Tony said, then amended, “I mean, no, not really. It was an accident. The prankish qualities were more like, collateral damage.”

Thor seemed concerned. “What did he do?”

“Er, he froze this floor, basically.”

“Oh,” Thor said, worry vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. “Yes, I see. He is trying that again at the moment, but he agreed to restrict it to his room.”

“Yeah,” Tony said slowly, then squinted at the god. “Hold on, do you _know_ what he's doing?”

Another yawn. “You just said. He is freezing his room.”

“But why?”

“I'm not sure,” Thor said slowly, but seemed overall unbothered. “But I _am_ sure that it wouldn't be wise to disturb him.”

Tony snorted. “I've already had a hammer thrown at me, it can hardly get worse.”

Thor patted him on the shoulder. “I _am_ sorry about that. But with you sneaking around like this - you know. Reflexes.”

“Reflexes,” Tony agreed. More like paranoia, but fine. It wasn't like Tony couldn't relate; he'd shot implants into his arm for this very reason. “I didn't know you were back, otherwise I wouldn't have just barged in here.”

“It's fine, Tony. You're always welcome here.”

“Thanks,” Tony said, a bit dryly. Wasn't like this was his tower anything. “So, uh - feel free to go back to sleep, then, I'll just -”

“Yes, sure.” Thor was already walking away, holding Mjölnir loosely in his hand. A second before disappearing, he added, “Call for me if he threatens you too much.”

Yep, also very reassuring. “I will, thanks.”

Tony then made his way to Loki's room - or rather, his apartment. He was surprised to find the door already open, Loki leaning against the frame, brows raised. “I heard something shatter,” Loki said. “It wasn't your head, I take it.”

“The table,” Tony explained, quickly giving Loki a once over. There was light coming out of the god's room, so Tony could see well enough. Loki was shirtless again, and his bare feet - blue, but bleeding back into pink the second Loki caught him looking.

“What do you want?” Loki asked.

Tony thought about that for a second. He didn't really know, so he settled for, “Ask what you're up to.”

Loki looked at him, unimpressed. “I'm up to nothing.”

Tony glanced past Loki into the living room. It looked like it was very cold in there, but Tony didn't feel anything of that where he was standing. “The icicles are back.”

Loki threw a nonchalant look over his own shoulder. “Indeed they are. I hadn't noticed.”

“So you're up to something.”

Loki started to frown, his shoulders tensing a little. “I am up to _nothing_,” he repeated, tone firm. “What do you want?”

“Ask what you're -”

Loki slammed the door right into Tony's face, making him topple backwards a bit. Tony ground his teeth.

“I'm not trying to pry,” he called. ”Or control you or - you know, anything like that. I'm just really bored.” 

_And sleep-deprived. And, maybe, perhaps, just a little - curious._

Loki didn't reply and the door didn't open again, either, so Tony sighed and decided to leave the mage alone.

❄

From there on, Loki did the freezing thing every few nights. Because of the aforementioned reasons (boredom, sleep-deprivation, curiosity) Tony tried to visit Loki a few times more, but Loki didn't even open the door anymore. And even though Tony was still curious - and maybe slightly concerned; this was still _Loki_, after all -, he could also relate to other people's need for privacy. If Loki had some kind of magical experiment going on, fine, Tony wouldn't keep him from that.

A few weeks passed, and it started to get warmer. In fact, spring started to turn into one of the hottest summers New York had seen in years, and it was awful. In Tony's opinion, temperatures like this were only okay when there was a pool with nicely cool water available at any second, along with some ice cold drinks and sunshades. Temperatures like this were certainly _not_ okay during an Avengers mission.

“_I swear_,” Clint whined over the comm for the fourth time, “_that I'm fucking _melting. _Seriously, why can't we have summer break or something?”_

“Because evil never sleeps,” Tony informed him, shooting a blender out of the air and watching it plummet to the ground. “And try doing this while in an actual metal suit, I dare you.”

“_No, thanks_,” Clint said. Then - “_Ah, shit_ -”

Tony decided to ignore him - he was pretty certain that Clint was okay - and started paying proper attention to the fridge that was currently attacking him.

“This is,” he grunted, “_definitely_ one of the - _weirdest _\- could you _stop_ doing that, you're a fridge, not a -”

He put an end to the existence of the fridge with a well-aimed kick. Its last deed was throwing pudding at him, and Tony was not amused.

The Avengers dealt with a lot of weird things. Loki's pranks weren't even the weirdest. But _this_ \- this was really a bit over the top.

When they'd gotten the call two hours ago, their first instinct had been to blame Loki - breathing life into inanimate objects so they could harass New York was the sort of thing he'd do for fun -, but when the mage had reluctantly joined them in the meeting room, they had all already suspected that Loki didn't have anything to do with this. And by now they were absolutely sure that this wasn't Loki's fault, because they had gotten to know a certain wannabe wizard who had, loudly and proudly, proclaimed that he was the one responsible for this mess. Apparently, he had no friends, which was why he needed an “army of household objects that will prove to be the greatest force humanity has ever…” (Tony had zoned out at that point.)

It was actually a bit sad.

“_Loki_,” came Steve's not at all breathless - the bastard - voice over Tony's earpiece, “_Are you getting anywhere? Because -”_

“_I am doing everything I can,”_ Loki hissed back. He sounded like he was about to kill someone. Or, you know. Pass out.

“_Are you alright, brother? Do you need -_”

“_I am perfectly fine, just -”_ Loki broke off with a noise that sounded suspiciously like something people let out when they were in pain.

“_Loki!_”

“I can see him, Thor!” Tony called, already flying off. “He's fine.”

Well, more or less, anyway.

Loki was perched on a roof and battling the wizard in person, but apparently he hadn't yet managed to mess up the wizard's spells. Instead he was busy fending up an army of cutlery that kept flinging itself at him. Tony came to a halt right above the mage and blasted the lot of spoons and forks and knives away with his repulsors. Loki used the chance to throw some knives of his own at the wizard, and one of them hit him right in the stomach. He already had some other wounds, and this finally did it - he collapsed, and his army of household objects returned to be just that, objects.

JARVIS called a rescue helicopter for the guy, and Tony landed next to Loki on the roof.

“Looked like you needed some help,” he said, prepared to tease. They often teased each other on the battlefield - the only thing that made battles interesting nowadays, really. But this time, Loki didn't really seem in the mood for some bickering.

“I _said_ that I was perfectly fine!” he snapped, pulling a fork out of his thigh without so much as a wince.

Only then Tony noticed that Loki’s face was flushed in a way that didn’t seem healthy. His chapped lips were parted and he was _wheezing_, eyes wide and already glassed over.

“Hey,” Tony said, letting his face plate slide up as he approached the god. “Hey, Loki, are you -”

“Fine!” Loki interrupted sharply. “I'm -”

His eyes rolled back into his head, and then he collapsed.

“Er,” Tony said.

❄

Two hours later, two men were screaming at each other on the other side of a door, and Tony stood on his side and wondered whether it was really a good idea to march in there. He didn’t really want to fight against either of said men. Then again, if they actually got into a fight, the infirmary part of Tony’s tower would suffer. A lot.

“Let me-” Thor said for the third time, and, for the third time, Tony shook his head.

“He said that he doesn’t want to see you,” he said then, not for the first time. “No offense, Conan, but I think you bolting in there would be a bit counterproductive.”

Then, to escape Thor’s puppy dog eyes, Tony opened the door and closed it behind himself. The shouting stopped immediately, and it would have been funny if the tension in the air hadn’t been freaking palpable_._

Loki was sitting on the hospital bed in the middle of the room, leaning against the headboard with his arms crossed. He wasn’t looking at Bruce, who stood next to the bed, a little green looking.

“Okay,” Tony said. “What’s going on here? I heard you screaming all the way up in my shop.”

Not that he’d been anywhere near his workshop these last two hours. No, he’d spent them transporting Loki to the med bay first, then he’d waited for Bruce to de-hulk and listened to Thor and Loki snapping at each other for a while. The younger god had woken up again pretty quickly - on the way to the tower already, in fact - and he hadn’t been pleased. He’d also not been strong enough to put up any proper resistance, though, which was slightly worrying. Steve had gotten him to agree to let Bruce take a look at him, if only with the promise that Loki would be entirely left alone after.

“_Dr. Banner_,” Loki said, managing to make a perfectly respectable name sound like an insult, “is threatening me.”

“I’m not _threatening_ you, for heaven’s sake,” Bruce snapped at once. “I’m trying to _help_. If you’d just -”

“No,” Loki said, still not looking at him.

“You’re sick, Loki, I can -”

“I am not _sick._”

“Are you sure?” Tony chimed in, raising a brow. “You look sick to me.”

It earned him a glare, but it was true. Loki _did_ look sick - his skin looked oddly waxy except for the places where it was reddened and irritated. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair a mess, and while he didn’t look like he was about to keel over again, he did seem absolutely exhausted.

“I think he had - well, something like a heatstroke,” Bruce said, voice still pinched but overall a little calmer. “But according to JARVIS his temperature is even a bit below normal, and he doesn’t let me measure it myself.”

“I’m right here,” Loki said primly. “Don’t talk about me as if I -”

“You don’t give me much of a choice,” Bruce interrupted, eyes flaring up. “I _tried_ to -”

“I won’t let you touch me. If you think I have _forgotten_ what you -”

“Okay,” Tony cut him off. “Could you both just - this isn’t really getting us anywhere. Bruce, maybe - you want to step out for a sec? You look -”

“Yes,” Bruce agreed, without hesitation. He was scowling, and his eyes were tinted green. “I know.”

He shot one last scalding look at Loki and then turned to leave the room, slamming the room shot behind him.

“You know,” Tony said, “he’s actually a pretty chill guy. By now it takes a lot to make him angry enough that he almost loses it.”

Loki glanced at him only briefly, still glaring. He didn’t offer any explanation, and he didn’t need to - Tony had stood in front of the room for a while, after all; he’d heard that Loki had mocked Bruce quite a bit.

Tony looked at the god who was, despite everything, a member of his team. Not an entirely _wanted_ member, but… tolerated. Valuable, too. He’d been sent here to make amends, so they let him make amends, and usually he was a great help on missions. Today, though…

“Why didn’t you say anything when we got the call this morning?” Tony asked, studying Loki’s face. “You could’ve told us that you weren’t feeling well, then -”

“Then you would have _allowed_ me to stay behind?” Loki finished for him, tone clipped.

“Loki, we don’t force you to go on missions with us.”

“And still I do not have much of a choice, do I?”

He wasn’t wrong - he didn’t have a real choice. He’d agreed to help the Avengers, both as an consultant and a fighter, and if he didn’t, he’d be back in Asgard within just a few hours.

“It’s different when you’re sick, okay?” Tony tried again. “And no, don’t even try, we both know that you _are_.”

Loki glared at him again, but he didn’t leave the bed, or the entire room. Usually he just teleported away when he didn’t want to be anywhere, and that he didn’t do that right now was… yes, also a bit worrying.

_A heatstroke_, Tony thought, trying to figure out what exactly was going on. He hoped that Loki hadn’t messed with JARVIS’ systems again, but if he hadn’t, then the AI’s data were doubtlessly correct. And if Loki’s temperature was really below normal, then - Tony thought about ice, suddenly, and blue feet, and then looked at Loki, frowning.

“Is it still too hot in here for you?”

For a second, Loki actually seemed surprised, but his scowl returned quickly enough. Tony took that as a confirmation.

“Okay, then,” he said. “Come on, can you stand up?”

Loki looked at him, suspicious. “Why?”

“Because I have an idea, genius. I’ll take you somewhere colder.”

Something about that made Loki overcome a bit of his pride - maybe the prospect of _colder _was a good one. He stared at Tony for a moment longer, but then carefully flung his feet out of bed. He paused for a second after putting them on the floor and then stood up, swaying just a little. Tony approached him, offering to help, but Loki’s answering snarl told him that it was better to stay away.

They made it out of the room - they had to fob off Thor, but Loki seemed to have experience in that and was quite good at it - and to the elevators, where Loki had to lean against the wall in order to not collapse again. Tony didn’t comment - they didn’t talk at all, in fact, but he could feel Loki’s suspicious eyes on him the whole time. Tony didn’t doubt that Loki still had access to a dagger or two, so he should probably try and avoid annoying the god too much.

There was a big cafeteria in the lower parts of the tower, and also a proportionally big kitchen. Tony had it cleared for five minutes so that he and Loki could pass it without being bothered by anyone. They ended up standing in front of a metal door that Tony quickly opened. There were welcomed with a rush of cold air.

“Oh,” Loki said, then immediately shuffled into the freezer room. He let out a relieved breath and sat down on a box with - whatever, chicken or something? Tony didn’t know. He himself took a careful step inside and closed the door. It wasn’t cold enough that it was already uncomfortable, but it would probably _get _uncomfortable in a bit of time. But Tony didn’t really like the thought of leaving Loki alone down here, so he would just stay where he was and think warm thoughts or something.

He watched as the god leaned his head back against the wall, closing his eyes. “Better?”

Loki hummed and nodded. “I won’t take long,” he mumbled. “My magic is already -” He broke off and run a hand through his hair, bringing it back into its usual sleek order. His skin looked a little better already, too.

“Huh.” Tony sat down on another box with food. “Okay, so no more missions for you when it’s this hot.”

“That would be appreciated,” Loki said, unusually affable. Then, “This is nice.”

“It’s freezing in here,” Tony said. Loki didn’t deem that worth of an answer, apparently, because he stayed silent. After a while, Tony added, “So that’s what you’ve been trying to do, then?”

“Hm?”

“You’re not comfortable in high temperatures,” Tony explained his line of thought. “As in, high temperatures make you collapse. Room temperatures aren’t cold enough, so you tried to make your rooms colder.”

Loki didn’t answer for a moment, and Tony already thought that he wouldn’t get an answer at all. But then the mage said, his tone perfectly even, “Room temperatures are fine. Warm, but fine.”

“Okay,” Tony said, drawing the word out. “So you need your rooms to be colder to - to what?”

Loki blinked his eyes open and looked down at his hands, his expression pensive. He then sighed and leaned back again, lifting his right hand to show Tony his little finger. “To do this.”

Tony stared at the finger, wondering what the fuck Loki meant, but then he saw it - the nail had turned black and maybe a little sharp, the skin was deep blue. It turned pink again even before the first knuckle, and the rest of Loki’s hands was as white as always.

“Huh,” Tony said again. “Why’s that?”

“None of your business.”

Tony huffed. “I think I deserve some answers for helping you with this.”

“I just gave you an answer.”

“No, you showed me your blue little finger, that’s not the same.”

Loki proceeded to ignore him. Tony looked at him, frowning.

“This isn’t an Aesir thing, is it?” he asked eventually. “Thor doesn’t have any problems with heat.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Loki answered, sounding careless.

“He also doesn’t turn blue, does he?”

“No.”

“Any other color?”

“No, Stark.”

“So you’re not like Thor, then.”

“No, I am not.”

Okay, so. Wait a second, Tony knew - Thor had told them - that Loki was adopted, but he’d never said anything about - “Hold on,” Tony said slowly. “Does this mean that you are - a different…”

Loki blinked one eye open to look at him. His expression was unreadable. “Species?”

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

“Huh.”

Loki sighed, annoyed, and closed his eyes again. “Could you stop making that sound?”

Tony stopped making that sound. He stopped making any sounds for a while, because, really, _holy shit_. Another alien species! A blue and obviously also humanoid one, not like the critters that had invaded New York - that was so _interesting_.

“Okay,” Tony said after a long while. He was starting to get actually cold, but he didn’t really mind right now. “I might have a few questions. So, do you -”

Loki glared at him, then disappeared.

Well, that was a good sign, probably. Apparently he felt better.

❄

Tony came to regret showing Loki the freezer room four days later, when there was an absolute _chaos_ in the cafeteria. Tony, who had spoken only briefly to the head of the kitchen, knew exactly what had happened, and so made his way down to Thor and Loki’s floor again. The Thunderer was off to somewhere - Tony had no idea what he was doing in his free time, probably explored New York and annoyed a few people with his otherworldly cheerfulness - so Tony didn’t have to dodge any hammers this time, which was nice.

He went straight to Loki’s door and knocked, and to his surprise, Loki opened it just a few seconds later, green eyes narrowing.

“Do you have nothing better to do than bothering me?”

“I have a lot of better things to do,” Tony said. “But you stole the freezer, so I’m here and won’t stop with the bothering until it’s back where it belongs.”

Loki blinked at him, surprised. “I didn’t steal anything.”

Tony raised his brows, and for a moment they just stared at each other. Then Loki huffed, his mask of innocence disappearing.

“I merely borrowed it,” he said, annoyed.

“You can’t just borrow an entire freezing room, they need it down there,” Tony told him. Why did Loki even need to be told things like that? _Because he doesn't give a damn about can's and cannot's, that's why. _Well, anyway. Tony actually thought that the whole thing was quite funny, but if he didn’t get Loki to insert the freezer back where it had been, the whole kitchen would probably strike. “What did you do to all the food?”

“It’s still in there,” Loki said. “I need it.”

“The food.”

The look Loki gave him was very tired. “Yes, of course. The food. I am very hungry, so I need the food.”

”You're the funniest guy I know,” Tony said, giving the god a wide and obviously fake grin. It faded quickly enough. “Look, I know the freezer’s, well, cold, and that you like that -”

“I _need_ it.”

“- that you need it, yes, whatever, but you can’t have _this_ freezer, okay?” Tony came up with an alternative very quickly. “There’s another one down in the labs, but nobody really needs it for anything right now. You can have that one, unless -” He looked over Loki’s shoulder into his room. “Unless you want to have it here? We could also renovate your rooms here, I guess.”

“No,” Loki said at once. “No, that’s not necessary. I don’t want my rooms to be -” He cut off, frowning.

Tony waited for a moment, then prompted, “What?”

Loki lightly shook his head. “The one in the… labs…”

“Yes?”

“Who has access to it?”

“Uh, it’s in Bruce’s part of the labs, actually. He needs it to freeze things sometimes. Obviously. So, Bruce has access - I should probably ask him first. Maybe -”

“No,” Loki said.

“What, no?”

“No.”

Tony clenched his teeth. “Because of Bruce? That’s ridiculous, you know. He’s probably the kindest -”

“I said _no_.”

Taking a deep breath, Tony nodded. “Okay. Okay, fine. You don’t want to have one in your rooms, you don’t want to share Bruce’s - you can’t have the one in the kitchen, so -”

At this point Tony went through a certain thought process. It took only the fraction of a second. He knew that he should suggest getting Loki a (small) lab on his own, where he wouldn’t be bothered and where _he_ wouldn’t bother _anybody else_, especially not Tony himself. But Tony also knew that he wouldn’t find out more about Loki’s blueness and what the actual fuck he was trying to achieve, then, and Tony had always been too curious for his own good. So he could either convince Loki to let Tony visit the god’s hypothetical lab now and then, or -

“There’s a room in my part of the labs I could spare, I guess,” he said, thoughtful. “Nobody but me would have access to it, and nobody visits me there, anyway. What about that?”

Loki looked at him for a very long time. “Why?” he asked then.

“Because it would save us both time and effort,” Tony said. “Right? You wouldn’t have to put your rooms on ice anymore or go around stealing entire fucking freezers, so -”

“Yes, but why are you offering _me_ a space in _your _laboratory?”

“It’s a workshop, really.”

Loki’s eyes narrowed again, and Tony had the distinct feeling that Loki didn’t trust him. What a surprise.

“I might be a bit interested, okay?” Tony admitted, with another sigh. He should really stop sighing. He already felt a bit like a tired single dad or something. Or like a tired Nick Fury. “I’ve no idea what you’re doing, but you’re - no offense or anything - a literal _alien_, and I -”

“I will _not_ serve as your _lab rat_,” Loki hissed, and before Tony could even wonder how Loki knew what a lab rat was - did they have lab rats on Asgard? -, Loki slammed the door into Tony’s face once again.

“Put the freezer back where it came from,” Tony called and took the following annoyed silence as a sign that Loki had heard.

There wasn’t much else Tony could do, really.

❄

An hour later, the freezer room was back where it belonged, in the kitchen.

The next morning, Tony began setting up a freezer in a secluded room of his workshop.

❄

There was only one thing about Loki that they were absolutely certain of: he didn't enter the community floor. He didn't eat with them in the kitchen when one of them - most of the time either Steve or Bruce - decided to cook for them all. He didn't stop by every now and then to see if there was somebody to talk to, he didn't join them on movie nights or when they fought over a board game. Loki just didn't do any of that.

So, when he simply sauntered into the TV room one evening, everyone present was completely stunned. Everyone just stared - well, everyone except Thor, who needed about 0.3 seconds to turn into an over excited Golden Retriever.

“Brother! You are -”

Loki shushed him, holding up one finger. “One more word and I'll leave again.”

Thor snapped his mouth shut and nodded, then started to grin. Loki rolled his eyes and simply ignored the rest of them as he walked up to them. There was still space left on the two seater Clint was sitting on - Nat and Steve had made themselves comfortable on the other sofa, Bruce was perched in the armchair they regularly fought over - but Loki just went and conjured up a new armchair for himself. It clashed impressively with the rest of the furniture, but it looked soft and comfortable, and Tony was actually a bit jealous.

“What are you doing here?”

Loki gave Clint just a brief glance as he made himself comfortable in his new chair. “What does it look like?”

“Looks like everyone's comfortable except me,” Tony said before Clint could even open his mouth.

“You lost the bet,” Steve reminded him.

Tony, who was sitting on the floor in front of Natasha and Steve's sofa, turned around to look at the soldier. “I didn't lose the bet, I just -”

“You lost the bet,” Natasha told him.

”I lost the battle, but I'll win the -”

Clint threw popcorn at him. “There's no war, genius. I ended the war by winning the bet.”

Tony scowled. “I'm being bullied,” he decided, plucking popcorn out of his hair. “You're the most ungrateful bunch of idiots that ever existed and I am being bullied.”

“Well, now I feel bad,” Natasha said dryly, and when Tony threatened her with a held up finger, she just smiled sweetly at him.

Thor was still grinning.

“What bet?” Loki asked.

“None of your business,” Clint answered.

“Clint,” Steve began, but the archer didn't let him finish.

“What? It _is_ none of his business. It's not like any of us wants him here.”

“I want him here,” said Thor, who wasn't grinning anymore.

“Sorry, you don't count. You’re a bit biased.”

“Is this necessary right now?” Bruce chimed in. “Can't we just decide on what to watch and -”

He cut himself off, because Loki chose that second to stand up and leave. He didn’t even look at any of them.

“You can stay if you want,” Steve called after him, but Loki didn’t react. Steve looked at Clint. “Good job, really.”

“I’m just brave enough to say what we all thought,” Clint tried to defend himself. “At the risk of being stabbed.”

“You’re an ass, that’s what you are,” Tony told him and stood up. He ignored the confused voices of the others and hurried to catch up with Loki, who was, apparently, on his way to the kitchen of all places. “Hey, Lokes, wait a minute -”

Loki glanced at him over his shoulder, but didn’t say anything. Tony came to a halt in the middle of the kitchen and watched as Loki made a beeline for the fridge.

“You can come back, you know. Ignore Clint, he just -”

“Holds a grudge against me,” Loki said as he peered into the fridge, “which is perfectly understandable and also not worth my time.”

“You’ll pay him back later, huh?”

“Perhaps.” Loki opened the freezer compartment and ruffled through the things in there.

“What are you doing there?” Tony asked, a bit stunned.

“Seeing to it that my coming up here was not entirely pointless,” Loki muttered and finally procured what turned out to be a popsicle. Looking satisfied, he closed the fridge and opened the package. He walked past Tony to throw it away, then leaned against the counter, bringing the popsicle to his lips. “Did you want something?”

“Uhh.” Tony tried to convince his brain to go back to work, but it was a little distracted by the sight in front of him. The equation Loki plus popsicle wasn’t something Tony had ever considered before, but it looked like the result was a good one.

“Stark,” Loki said, impatient, and Tony blinked at him.

“Just wanted to tell you that you don’t have to leave, I guess.”

Loki’s expression was blank, unreadable. “I do not feel like joining you and your lovely friends anymore.”

_Anymore, huh?_ “But you did feel like it earlier? That’s a first, isn’t it?”

Loki glared at him, but the effect was curbed a bit when he ran his tongue over the damned popsicle. Tony tried not to stare. He tried very, very hard. And of course he failed, because Tony Stark couldn’t just _not_ stare at certain things when he wanted to stare at them, and of course Loki noticed. He stilled, just briefly, eyes flickering from Tony’s face to the ice in his own hands and back, and then his brows shot up ever so slowly, almost deliberately. He didn’t say anything, though, just continued licking, a spark of _something_ in his eyes that made Tony clear his throat and force himself to look away, just for a second, just to get himself under control.

This was still _Loki_, for fuck’s sake.

Loki, who was actually smirking now, the bastard. “I was bored,” he said, a little less dismissive than before. “Your servant told me that you had assembled for a _movie night_, so I thought…” He finished off with a nonchalant shrug of one shoulder.

Tony stared at him. “My servant?”

Loki nodded and used the popsicle to indicate the ceiling.

“Oh, you mean JARVIS,” Tony said. Then, “Wait, you speak to JARVIS?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Loki replied, expression turning back to annoyed. “We play chess sometimes.”

“Oh,” Tony said, while what he really wanted to say was, _What the fuck?_

“Anything else?” Loki asked.

“What? No. Or, wait - yes. You’re feeling better, don’t you?”

Loki eyed him warily. “Obviously.”

Tony nodded. The Heatstroke Incident had happened almost two weeks ago, and while it was still far too hot outside, Loki hadn’t _gone_ outside anymore - as far as Tony knew, at least -, so of course he felt better. The temperatures in the tower were absolutely fine, even for someone who enjoyed sitting in freezers.

“Great,” Tony said. “That’s great. Then - I just wanted to say that the freezer’s ready, that’s all.”

Loki stilled again, his surprise evident. “The freezer?” he repeated.

“Yes. The one in my workshop. We talked about it.”

“I told you no.”

“No, you told me that you wouldn’t serve as my lab rat. There’s a difference between that and no.”

Loki just looked at him for a moment, absentmindedly licking at the popsicle - Tony had to resist the urge to snatch it from him - and obviously thinking. Eventually, he asked, “Why are you doing this?”

Tony blinked at him, then shrugged. “You’re a part of the team.”

Loki looked entirely unimpressed. He pointed at the direction of the TV room with the popsicle. “We both know that I am not.”

“Okay, not in _that_ sense maybe, but - you fight on our side, and you’re living in my tower. Also I don’t need you stealing any more freezers for… whatever you exactly need them for.”

Loki didn’t answer the unspoken question. “In your workshop, you say?” he asked instead.

“Yeah. JARVIS can show you the way and let you in. As long as I’m there, that is.”

“I see,” Loki said. Then, the tiniest hint of a smirk, a glance at the open door. “Enjoy your time sitting on the floor, then.”

And disappeared.

For a moment, Tony looked at the spot where Loki had just been. He wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened, but he had picked up one thing -

“You play _chess_ with him?”

“_Now and then, sir. He’s starting to get very good at it._” A pause, then JARVIS added, “_I think he might be a little lonely.”_

Tony had no idea what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything at all.

❄

About a week later, Loki showed up in the workshop, hesitant and more than a little wary. Tony was buried in work at the moment, so he just pointed into the direction Loki had to go. Loki didn’t say another word, he just went, and Tony didn’t see him again the entire night.

❄

That quickly became a regular thing. Loki would come up to the workshop, usually at night or late evening, and he’d go into his new freezer room and close the door behind him and never say more to Tony than “hello”, sometimes not even that. All in all, Tony was fine with that - Loki didn’t wreak havoc in the kitchens or freeze half the tower again, and he even toned down his pranks a little, too. Which made life at the tower a bit more boring, but at least it meant that Tony could work in peace.

There were only two weird things about this arrangement of theirs.

First, Loki always came to the workshop via the elevator, he didn’t just teleport into his room. That was weird because he always teleported _out of_ the room when he was done with, well, whatever he did in there. Tony had cameras installed in Loki’s room, of course, and JARVIS kept an eye on him to make sure that he didn’t do anything Tony should know of. The only thing JARVIS had told him so far was that Loki did, in fact, leave the workshop after a few hours by teleporting right out of it. And Tony didn’t know why he didn’t just teleport _into_ the room, too. He wasn’t sure whether that was a big thing or not, if it _meant_ anything, but he thought about it more than he probably should.

Second, there was the slight confusion about the fact that this was happening in the first place. Tony had offered this because he’d been curious, because he wanted to know what Loki was up to, but so far Tony hadn’t even properly _tried_ to find out what Loki was up to. He could have easily asked JARVIS, but he didn’t. Not because he wasn’t curious anymore, just because… he wouldn't want anyone, especially not a former enemy, poking their nose into his work, either. Loki already mistrusted him as it was, Tony didn’t want to do anything that proved that he _deserved_ that mistrust. Not that it was important that Loki trusted him, but - well. Tony _was_ still curious.

He should just ask, probably. But the thing was, he didn’t actually _talk_ to Loki often these days. Nobody did. Loki hadn’t come to the community floor again, which was understandable, and he’d been freed from Avengers missions too, at least until it got cooler again. Tony always meant to ask Loki when he came to the workshop, but every time he found that he didn’t quite know how. So he just didn’t ask.

Weeks passed like that, and Tony already thought that everything would just stay the same for however long Loki had to stay on Earth. But then, one night, Tony nearly fell off his chair because somebody in his workshop was calling his name, and it wasn’t a voice he was used to hearing in his workshop.

“Stark?”

Tony needed just a moment to pull himself together, then he stood up and approached the owner of the voice. Since Loki being around here was something like a regular occurrence, Tony had made a few changes - his workshop here spread over a few rooms and they were, unlike his workshop in Malibu, already separated by walls that weren’t made of glass, which had made this easier. He had just needed to clear the room Loki would walk through - from the elevators to the freezer room - of everything he didn’t want Loki to see. He didn’t want Loki to see most of the things Tony kept here, for obvious reasons. And somehow, they seemed to have come to an unspoken agreement - Tony didn’t poke his nose into the freezer room to see what was going on in there, Loki didn’t go snooping around in the rest of the workshop. The whole thing was a little unsettling, but it worked.

Now, though, _now_ Loki had left his room and stood in the middle of the room that was now more of a hallway, and Tony stood in the entrance to his _actual_ workshop, and they were both staring at one another.

“Yes?” Tony asked after a moment.

Loki frowned at him, and Tony only now noticed that he was just being looked over from head to toe. He knew that his clothes were covered in oil stains and that he could use a shower, but he’d looked - and felt - worse and still managed to be cocky, so he grinned.

“If you just called me to ogle me, that’s absolutely fine.”

Loki looked at him, unimpressed, and raised a brow. “I wasn't aware that there was anything worth ogling.”

Tony couldn't help it, he had to laugh. ”Okay, first of all, _low_ blow right there -”

“I'm awfully sorry, did I hurt your feelings?”

“- and also you're really just lying at this point, come on.”

Loki's grin was a tiny thing, but it seemed sincere. ”You do know who you are talking to, yes?”

“Dunno, the god of popsicles?”

The grin widened. “Ah. Still thinking about that, I see.”

“I like thinking about pretty things,” Tony told him with a smirk.

Loki just rolled his eyes and - and laughed. Only now Tony realized that he’d never heard Loki laugh before, and he wasn’t sure if he found that ridiculous or sad. It was a nice sound, quiet and deep and surprisingly warm.

“I need it to be colder,” Loki said, with the hint of a smile.

Tony stared at him blankly. “What?”

The god gave him a dry look. “The freezer room. I need it to be colder.”

“_Even_ colder?”

“Yes.”

“Uh, okay.” Tony ran an oil-stained hand through his hair. “I could arrange that, I guess, but - couldn’t you use magic for that?”

“I could,” Loki said. “But I would have to constantly feed energy into the spell to maintain it, and that would get tiring after some while. I can’t afford it to be tiring at all.”

“Okay,” Tony said again. “Alright, then. What do I get?”

“I’d wondered,” Loki drawled, and before Tony could frown and ask _what_ Loki had been wondering about, the mage held out a hand that was all of a sudden holding a book. “Here. You could have this.”

Tony blinked at the book. The title was written in some sort of runes that didn’t make any sort of sense to him. “What’s that?”

“You are interested in metal work, aren’t you?”

Tony huffed. “Duh.”

“This,” Loki said, “is a book written by the head of the royal smiths of Nidavellir.” In reaction to Tony’s uncomprehending look, Loki explained, “The world of the dwarfs. They are the most skilled metal workers you’ll find. Mjölnir is one of their creations.”

“Oh.” Tony thought about that damned hammer, frowning. “That’s - that’s magic then, isn’t it?”

“Magic and science are one and the same thing,” Loki told him, then smirked. “Your way of handling it is just… a little underdeveloped.”

“Uh, _excuse_ you -”

“You could improve your work,” Loki interrupted. “I’m certain you could find ways to make it work, given that you always claim to be a genius.”

“I _am_ a genius,” Tony said. “Let me take a look at it.”

“You can have it when -”

“I’m not buying a pig in a poke.”

Loki frowned. “Pardon?”

Tony had to stifle a grin. “I can’t read that,” he said, nodding at the cover of the book. “Can I?”

Loki smoothed out his expression, feigning innocence. “You can’t?”

“What are these, dwarfish runes or something?”

“Yes, in fact.”

“And the whole book is written in them?”

“Of course,” Loki said. Tony raised his brows at him, and after a moment the god sighed and let the book sink. “You’re not as easily played as I thought.”

“Is that a compliment clad in an insult or an insult clad in a compliment?”

That laugh again. The look in Loki’s almost too green eyes seemed pleased, which was also a first. “I will translate it for you,” he offered. “I might even help you if you have questions.”

“I won’t have questions I can’t answer myself,” Tony said.

“Just in case the impossible happens, then,” Loki amended, still grinning in that arrogant way of his that Tony couldn’t help but find… nice. “And the impossible has a habit to happen, in my experience.”

Tony narrowed his eyes. “You’re challenging me, aren’t you?”

Loki gave an elegant shrug. “I would like to see what your so-called _brilliant_ mortal mind is capable of.”

“Oh, honey,” Tony said, grinning as he offered Loki his hand to seal their deal. “It’ll blow you away.”

Loki’s hand was very cold.


	2. Chapter 2

“Okay so, when I engrave these sign thingies into the alloy, it should work,” Tony said, mostly talking to himself (and maybe to the bots and JARVIS). He frowned at the paper in front of him and leaned over to compare the runes he’d drawn to those in the book.

The book which had returned to dwarfish, _again._

“Hey,” Tony said and tapped the page with his fingers, reminding it that he was still there. The words returned to being English ones, making it _much_ easier to understand which sigil was for what. “Thanks.”

He’d spent the entire night working on these runes. They weren’t any go-to exemplary sigils he could just use, he had to build his own out of sigil _fragments_. He’d needed a few hours just to understand which fragments meant what, and whether any combination he considered was okay to use or would cause his suit to combust. Then he’d needed another few hours to actually _draw_ the runes. Every line had to be perfect, flawless; the book was very clear on that.

Now, if it worked, his suit would be resistant against all kinds of things. He really hoped it wouldn’t combust. According to the book, everyone - not just people who had magic - was able to use these runes, even though they would be a bit more efficient when drawn by a mage. Tony was still not over the fact that he used a sort of magic book on dwarfish metal work to engrave sort of magic and dwarfish runes into his suit, but oh well. This was only one of many weird things in his life. Also, the book was fucking _fascinating_.

“_Sir?”_

“Not now, J.”

“_I’m sorry to disturb you, but it’s about Loki_.”

Tony looked up from his work. “Loki? Why, what did he do?”

“_He is not doing anything, sir. He hasn’t moved for five hours and thirty-nine minutes, in fact, and I’m starting to worry.”_

“Five hours?” Tony echoed, rubbing his eyes. “Is he asleep?”

“_No. His vitals seem to be fine, but he doesn’t reply when I talk to him.”_

“Maybe he’s just meditating or something? I mean, that’d be a mage-y thing to do.”

“_Sir,”_ JARVIS said, in that tone that promised a lot of sass and “accidentally” cold water if Tony didn’t do as his AI wished.

Tony dropped his pencil and narrowed his eyes at the AI’s nearest camera. “You like him,” he accused.

“_I’m hardly the only one, am I?”_

“Stop calling me out on my problems, JARVIS. Show me the feed instead.”

JARVIS stayed silent and obliged. The computer screen on Tony’s desk lit up with the feed of the camera in Loki’s room, showing - an empty room, on first sight. Tony squinted at it and after a moment he spotted Loki huddled up in one corner, legs drawn up to his chest and forehead on his knees.

“Patch me through,” Tony said, frowning. As soon as the connection stood, he added, “Hey, Lokes, you okay in there?”

No reply.

“Loki?”

Still nothing, so Tony sighed and stood up to make his way to Loki’s room. He knocked and called Loki’s name again, wondering whether Loki could even hear it through the thick metal door. Loki still didn’t answer, didn’t even move, and slowly Tony began to understand why JARVIS was worried.

“His vitals are fine, you say?”

“_Yes, sir_,” JARVIS replied, pulling up a hologram with the data. “_His heart rate is a little slow, but it always is - I think it is normal for him._”

Tony didn’t listen. He was busy staring at the number that described Loki’s body temperature. “Fuck, that’s cold,” he muttered. “Uh, J, can I - can I go in there without dying?”

“_As long as you don’t stay for longer than four minutes, yes.”_

“Four minutes,” Tony said, reaching out for the door handle. “Got it.”

He opened the door, and it was like jumping into arctic water, just colder. A lot colder. He _knew_ how cold it was, of course - he’d made it this cold himself, after all, by inventing the most potent air conditioning in the world - and he also knew that four minutes might even be a bit too long. But, well - if Loki collapsed in here or something, Tony wouldn’t be able to dodge the hammer anymore.

He decided to move fast, grinding out Loki’s name through clenched teeth. He knelt down in front of the mage, eyes flickering over the blue skin of bare feet and arms and shoulders, ice crystals in pitch black hair - Tony reached out to put his hand on Loki’s shoulder.

He was so shocked by the sudden sight of blood red eyes that he barely noticed the pain shooting up his arm, all the way up to his shoulder, even right into his chest. He stumbled back and promptly fell.

The last thing he heard was the cracking of ice when his head hit the ground.

❄

Tony woke up because something weird was going on with his arm. It wasn’t hurting, but it was tingling and going warm all over, and Tony had no idea what was happening. His head felt like it was a few seconds away from exploding, but he managed to lift it and open his eyes, grunting as he tried to peer down at his arm.

“Shh,” someone told him. They put a cool hand on his forehead and carefully pushed his head back down. “Hold still.”

Tony now felt that an equally cold hand was wandering up his arm, all the way from his palm to his shoulder, its touch careful. The tingling followed wherever the fingertips went. Tony wondered if he was going to vomit; his head was hurting like hell. _Concussion_, he thought, and, _ugh, not again._ He didn’t like concussions. They made it hard to think.

Suddenly, the hand of who-ever-it-was touched his hair, carding through it until it found the wound that was responsible for Tony’s headache. He flinched and tried to get away, but he was only hushed again. A few seconds later his brain freaking _tingled_, and then the pain receded.

Tony opened his eyes, surprised, and found himself staring at the ceiling of what he recognized was his workshop. Someone was kneeling next to him, so Tony turned his head and looked at - oh.

“Oh,” he echoed out loud. “Hi.”

“Hello,” Loki replied. He had scooted away from Tony a little and also withdrawn his hands, which was probably good. Green eyes studied first Tony’s face, then the rest of his body. “Can you move your arm?”

Tony blinked at him, then lifted his right arm to see what was wrong with it. He couldn’t see anything.

“Good,” Loki said, satisfied. “Your fingers?”

Tony moved his fingers. They were a little stiff, which was weird, but overall fine. He frowned, trying to remember what happened, and - oh. _Oh._

Tony slowly sat up, still wiggling his fingers. The stiffness was already starting to fade. “So,” Tony said. “That was fun.”

“It really wasn’t.”

“I had the _weirdest_ dream,” Tony announced, ignoring Loki. “You were blue - like, all over. And your eyes -”

Loki just stared at him, silent, his expression blank. Tony stumbled over the words he'd wanted to say and ended up saying nothing at all for a while.

“Er,” he said then, eventually. “Not a dream then, huh?”

“No,” Loki replied, tone cool and even. His jaw was clenched now, but he didn't avert his eyes. “You shouldn't have done that.”

“Yup, kind of knew that.”

“Why did you come in, then?”

“Because you hadn't moved for five fucking hours?” Tony suggested, thinking that it was a pretty good reason. “Or because you didn't reply when -”

“Has it crossed your mind that, perhaps, I didn't _want_ to -”

“Has it crossed _your_ mind, asshole, that you're in my workshop? And that, if you die in my workshop, your brother's going to have my damned head?”

“He's not my brother,” Loki hissed and stood up. “One would think you'd have figured that out by now.”

“Fine.” Tony stayed sitting on the floor, legs sprawled out in front of him. “Adopted brother then. What were you doing?”

Loki scowled, maybe at the change of topic. Maybe about the situation in general. After a moment he said, tone snappish, “Waiting.”

“For what? Freezing to death?”

“I cannot freeze to death.”

“Then what -”

Loki vanished into thin air.

Tony sighed. “It's really annoying that he can do that.”

❄

He didn't see Loki again for almost four weeks. Loki didn't come to the workshop at all anymore, even though he'd been there practically every night before. It wouldn't bother Tony, usually - shouldn't bother him under these circumstances either -, but it definitely did. It bothered him because he still didn't know what Loki had been _doing_ and why exactly he turned blue (he was a different species, he'd said, but that didn't explain everything). It bothered him because everything had been totally fine before he'd walked into the freezer room like an idiot. He and Loki had actually _talked_ now and then, every time before Loki disappeared into his room, and it had been… well. Fun? Yes. Tony didn't know whether they'd been arguing or flirting, really, but that was what _made_ it fun.

And now - absolute radio silence.

It annoyed him immensely. He tried to convince himself that it didn't, of course, but that didn't work all too well.

He buried himself in work. The first three tries of engraving runes into his suit hadn't worked - it had blown up right into his face every time. But he was determined to get it right, so he _would_. In time.

He couldn't spend twenty-four hours a day working, though. At least not every day, and not five days in a row. That were JARVIS' rules, not Tony's - the AI had practically thrown Tony out of his lab at the end of the fifth day.

And now Tony was sitting in his penthouse. More precisely, at the bar in his penthouse, because where else would he sit at one am in a Tuesday night? JARVIS kept advising him to go to bed, but that was out of the question. Tony hadn't even seen his bed in three months.

He was so incredibly _bored_. And also exhausted. Possibly a bit drunk.

Maybe that was why he didn't even bat an eye when Loki appeared behind the bar.

“You never sleep, do you?”

Tony, his head propped up on one hand, grinned. “Sleep is for the weak, Rudolph.”

Loki rolled his eyes and looked away, examining the many bottles Tony's bar had to offer. He picked one of them up to read the label. “What did you do with all the juice?”

“Gave it away,” Tony said. In reaction to Loki's raised brow, he added, “There are a lot of orphanages with a year supply of apple juice now.”

Loki blinked, but didn't comment. Instead he turned and poured himself a drink of what happened to be Tony's most expensive whiskey.

“Yeah, sure,” Tony said. “Help yourself.”

Loki ignored him. He'd just taken a first sip and was now squinting at the amber liquid as if it had personally insulted him. “What is this, water?”

“Did you really come here to insult my alcohol?”

“Yes,” Loki answered, putting the glass down. Then he sighed and met Tony's eyes again. ”No.”

Tony, impressed by the other's logic, nodded and downed his drink. He poured himself another one and lifted his glass. Loki just looked at him.

“You could at least _pretend_,” Tony told him sourly and leaned over the bar to clink his glass to Loki's.

Loki raised a brow, and suddenly his glass was filled with a liquid so dark that it was almost black. He raised it, but Tony shook his head.

“Too late, honey.”

Loki simply took his sip from his villainy drink, unbothered. “You didn't tell anyone,” he said.

”What, that you're here?” It hadn't even crossed Tony's mind, really. He knew that Loki wasn't going to hurt him - the consequences for him would have been disastrous.

“No,” Loki said. “You didn't tell anyone what happened.”

“Oh.” Tony ran his thumb over the rim of his glass. His hand was working perfectly fine. “Why would I?”

“I attacked you,” Loki said. He looked affronted when Tony started to laugh.

“Sorry,” Tony snorted, “just - really? _Attacked_? You didn't attack me. You -”

“I hurt you,” Loki stated simply.

“Yeah, and then you healed me!” Tony shook his head, still chuckling, and took a sip of scotch. “It was an accident, nothing more. Nobody has to know.”

Loki frowned slightly and looked away, down at his still mostly filled glass. “I am sure Odin knows,” he murmured, as if talking to himself. “Heimdall must have seen.”

Tony refilled his glass. “Don't they have better things to do than spying on us?”

Loki glanced up again, lips twisting into a bitter smile. “Of course. But that will not keep them from spying on me.”

Tony squinted at the pronoun change, but quickly decided that it didn't matter. “So.”

“So?”

“Not that I mind,” Tony said, “but what're you doing here?”

Loki raised his brows. “You don't mind?”

“Nope.” He frowned, then amended, “I mean. Depends on what you want, I guess.”

Loki looked at him for a moment, frowning again. “You will not tell anyone?”

“Who should I tell?”

“Your dear Captain, perhaps? SHIELD?”

“I don't tell SHIELD _anything_,” Tony said firmly. “And Steve - ugh. No.”

He refilled his glass.

“So it will stay between you and me,” Loki said.

“Sure. Yup. The whole thing. Our little secret.”

“I can use the room again?”

“Never stopped you from using it, princess.”

“You have to give me your word that you will not enter it again.”

Tony narrowed his eyes at the god. It was getting harder to concentrate. “No,” he said.

“No?” Loki echoed, frowning.

“I still've no idea what you're doing in there,” Tony said. “And if you stop moving if you're in there and -”

“That will not happen again,” Loki cut him off, staring down at his own glass. Which was still full. “And even if it did - it _is_ none of your business.”

“S'my business when it happens in my workshop.”

“You will not enter my room,” Loki repeated, unusually patient. “Not without my permission.”

Tony huffed.

“I do not enter _your_ rooms without your permission either,” Loki reminded him. “It's a matter of decency.”

“It's a matter of paranoia,” Tony corrected, thinking about why he didn't want Loki to come into his workshop. He couldn't think of a real reason at the moment, given that Loki was actually good company, but he knew that it had a lot to do with paranoia.

Loki sighed. “We should talk about this again when you are sober.”

“I _am _sober.”

“Mhh, of course you are.”

“Mostly, anyway.”

“Why are you drinking?”

Tony laughed. “Because why not, that's why.” Loki didn't seem satisfied by that answer, so Tony said, “Bored. Work doesn't… work. Nothing else to do.”

“What about sleeping?” Loki asked.

“What's sleeping?”

Loki stayed quiet for a moment, then said, “I see. I will see you tomorrow, then.”

And disappeared.

“It's a matter of _decency_,” Tony repeated in a mock imitation of Loki's <strike>pretty</strike> posh voice.

He refilled his glass.

❄

To no surprise for everyone involved, Tony was hungover the following morning. He had passed out after a while, which was good because he'd needed the rest. (JARVIS claimed that three and a half hours of alcohol induced coma didn't pass as _rest_, but Tony didn't share that opinion.)

To the surprise of everyone involved, Loki didn't mock Tony when he came up to the workshop in the late evening. They talked for quite a while - the conversation was a little too stiff and awkward for Tony's taste - and agreed on the “no entering anybody's rooms without permission” thing. Then Loki disappeared into his room and disappeared from there two hours and twenty six minutes later. According to JARVIS, he had spent the time “trying to read a book”. Whatever that exactly meant.

It took a few days, but they managed to return to their old rhythm, and also to their bantering.

It took a few weeks, but at some point Loki started staying longer, and they started talking longer, and every awkwardness left their conversations as if it had never been there.

❄

Summer came to an end. Loki had long started joining them on their missions again, and it was on one of those missions that the following had happened:

“I swear I'm going to retire after this,” Tony had said.

“_My, Stark, you are not actually admitting to being old, are you?_” Loki had replied over the comm before anyone else got the chance.

Tony had huffed. “The only thing I'm admitting to is being ready for a never ending vacation. You know, where I'm not constantly bothered by goddamn. Flying. _Goblins._”

“_I think they are rather lovely_.”

Tony had snorted at Loki's dry tone. “Sure they are. Lovely little bastards.” He'd blasted one of them right out of the sky. “I've always hated _The Wizard of Oz._”

“_Weren't that flying monkeys?”_

“Wait, you've _seen_ it?”

“_I read the book_,” Loki had said, “_but -_”

“_Sorry to interrupt_,” a third voice had interrupted them, sounding absolutely _not_ sorry for interrupting them. “_But what's going on here?”_

“_Stark and I are having a conversation, Barton_,” Loki had informed the archer kindly. “_I am sure you have been a witness of human interaction before._”

“It's not really human, is it?” Tony had said, searching for the leader of the goblins, who had been basically a bigger goblin looking like something out of _Lord of the Rings_. Only with wings.

“_Well, half-human interaction, then,”_ Loki had amended.

“_What the fuck?”_ Clint had asked.

And that was why Tony was here now, in the kitchen of the Avengers floor, five pairs of worried/confused/angry eyes on him. Hurray.

“I really don't see what the problem is,” he said, more than just a little annoyed by now. ”He's a part of the team, isn't he?”

“He is,” Steve agreed carefully. “But just because he doesn't have another choice. He isn't on our side because he wants to be, Tony, you must know that.”

Tony huffed a laugh. “Of course I know that, but what does it matter? He's sentenced to thirty fucking years on Earth, so he'll be on our side for a long time still, no matter if he wants it or not.”

“That doesn't make it a good idea,” Clint said, his jaw clenched. His pair of eyes was the angry one.

“What, talking to him?” Tony asked, raising his brows. “Acknowledging that he's _there_, just every once in a while? That's not a good idea?”

“So you just forgot what he did? That doesn't matter anymore because it was, what, a year and a half ago? And now it's _okay _to -”

“For fuck's sake, Clint, you act like we're all innocents here,” Tony cut him off, his voice sharper now. “Of course I haven't forgotten what he did! But I haven't forgotten what _you_ did, either.” He snorted and played around with his sunglasses, resisting the urge to take them on again. (Steve had asked him to take them off, at the beginning of this.) “Or I, for that matter.”

“None of us tried to take over a whole planet,” Natasha said.

“I did,” Thor chimed in for the first time. “And also succeeded. Several times.”

Tony pointed at him with his sunglasses and shot pointed looks at the others. “See? And what are we doing about that, huh? Take away his poptarts? Ban from movie nights? Solitary confinement?”

“That's different -” Steve began, but Tony interrupted him with a laugh.

“Yeah, really? Because Thor's what, a hero - and Loki's not? It's not as simple as that, Cap.”

“He's right, you know,” Bruce, who was sitting at the table with Tony, said quietly. “The only reason Loki isn't a _real_ part of the team yet is because we don't want him to be.”

“But he doesn't actually try to… well, befriend us,” Steve said. “If he wanted that, he could -”

“That's bullshit, Steve,” Tony said. His voice came out muffled because his head was by now resting on his arms on the table.

“He did try,” Bruce added. “One time.”

It was quiet for a moment, then Thor said, “Loki has never been a very social person. But that - that wasn't always because he didn't _want_ to be. He never had much of a choice, I'm afraid.”

Tony lifted his head again to look at Thor. The god's expression was upset, and maybe a bit guilty.

“I'm glad that he found a friend in you,” he said, meeting Tony's eye, then turned to the others. “I also think that Loki might be less inclined to, er. Causing trouble this way. I don't know if you noticed, but his pranks have lessened.”

“Fine,” Clint said, “but -”

And the discussion went on. Tony wasn't listening any longer, too hung up on one certain word.

❄

That evening, Tony almost lost some fingers in a little explosion in his workshop, which happened every once in a while. His hand was a bit scorched, but overall fine, and he managed to save the better part of his work. He was still cursing, though, very loudly, and was only interrupted when another voice called his name.

“Not right now,” Tony called back, trying to get Dum-E to hand over the first aid kit while his injured hand was pressed to his chest.

“If you plan on blowing up your tower in the next minutes, I'd like to know.” It sounded like Loki was still in the hallway.

“You're not making it better,” Tony hissed at Dum-E. “It's nice that you want to help, really, but -”

“I take it you don't want me to come in, then?” Loki interrupted him curtly.

Tony settled for opening the first aid kit with his free hand, because Dum-E still refused to let go of it. Tony knew he had a balm for burn wounds somewhere in there. He just wanted to bandage his damned hand real quick and get back to work.

“What happened?” Loki asked, and Tony looked up to see that the god was standing right next to worktable. His brows were raised, eyes flickering between Tony’s face and his hand and Dum-E.

What was he, a cat? People shouldn't be allowed to be able to walk this silently; that wasn't good for Tony's heart. (Naturally, neither Natasha nor Loki cared about Tony's heart regarding this.) He scowled up at the god. “I didn't give you permission.”

“You need help. We agreed on emergencies as exceptions from the ground rule, yes? What happened?”

Tony glared at him, but after a moment informed him, “Your book is trying to kill me.”

Loki looked at him very blankly for a moment. “My book?”

“Yes, the - the one you gave me, about the dwarfs? Did you forget that already?”

Loki kept staring. After a moment he took a closer look at Tony’s desk and spotted both the book and Tony’s notes, eyes widening a little. “Oh,” he said softly and leaned over the table, examining the runes Tony had drawn on paper. “Did you draw these?”

“No, they just poofed into existence,” Tony said sourly and fiddled around with the fastening of the balm.

Absentmindedly, Loki reached out and opened the tube for him, then continued holding it as Tony smudged it onto his fingers. The god’s eyes were still fixed on the runes.

“I didn’t expect you to actually understand the book,” he said, closing the tube again when Tony was done. “But these are very good.”

“If they were, they wouldn’t blow up in my face all the time.”

“You just need to make a tiny change.” Loki sat down on a stool that hadn’t been there a second before and snatched the bandage from Tony’s grip. Then he proceeded to wrap it around Tony’s hand, seemingly unbothered by the way Tony was gaping at him. His movements were practiced; he wasn't doing this for the first time. He wasn't rough, either, not even hurried. His touch was so light and _gentle_ that it didn't even hurt, and Tony… Tony really didn't know how to deal with that right now. He was all too aware of Loki's fingers on his skin, of the fact that he was the sole focus of Loki's attention at the moment. It was - thrilling, in a way.

He had to look away.

“What change?” He asked, possibly to distract Loki, more likely to distract himself.

“You used a rune for protection against magic,” Loki began to explain. “You came up with it yourself, didn’t you?”

“I just put together some parts of runes I saw in the book.”

“Yes, and it works. In fact, it works a little too well. Do you have scissors in there?” That was directed at Dum-E, who was still holding the first aid kit. The robot promptly let it drop and then dug around in it with his claws, somehow managing to procure scissors. Loki took them and smiled at Dum-E. “Good job, thank you.” He clipped of the bandage and tied the two ends together, fingers moving as if they had done this a million times before.

Tony was staring at him again. (Loki had a lovely smile.)

“That rune protects your suit from magic,” Loki continued. “Every kind of magic, including that of the runes themselves. Which results in your suit dispelling them.” He briefly met Tony’s eyes. “You are lucky that you didn’t actually lose your hand.”

“Oh,” Tony said. “I thought there was something wrong with the one for extra speed.”

“Ah, no.” Loki glanced back at the notes and stood up, stool disappearing again. “That one is perfectly fine.” He returned the scissors to the first aid kit and watched as Dum-E rolled off with it, content now that Tony's injury had been seen to. Loki seemed curious. “Did you build…?”

“Dum-E?” Tony filled in. “Yeah. He's my oldest. Also still learning, though. Built him when I was sixteen. Uh.” He looked around the workshop, searching for U. He found her fiddling around with some tools in a corner. “His little sister is over there – Hey, U, say hello to Loki.”

There was a quick sequence of beeps, but she didn't roll over to them. Rude, but Tony had long given up teaching her manners. Also, Loki didn't seem to mind; he was smiling. Said _hello_ back, even.

“What is she doing?” He asked then, looking back at Tony.

Tony had been so busy staring at Loki that he now felt caught. He cleared his throat and looked at his runes, pretending that it wasn't at all a big deal that _Loki _was _nice_ to Tony's _robots. _“Something she shouldn't be doing, probably,” he said. He knew that U had heard, but she ignored them both. “Anyway. A change, you said?”

“Hmm?” Loki, who had been watching U again, needed a second to catch on. “Oh, yes. May I?”

“Sure.”

Loki leaned over Tony's desk again and grabbed a pencil this time. He carefully erased one line of the rune in question and made his correction. “Here. This should work.”

“Thanks,” Tony said, a bit annoyed that he'd needed the help after all. “If anyone asks, I managed this on my own.”

“You did,” Loki assured him. “For the most part.”

Tony looked at him. Loki held his gaze, unwavering. He was far from relaxed - Loki was never relaxed. But at least he didn't look at Tony with suspicion anymore, at least there wasn't always venom or scorn in his voice when they talked nowadays. At least…

Tony swallowed and looked down at his bandaged hand. “Couldn't you have just healed this?”

“I refrain from healing others if possible,” Loki replied, tone even. “This will heal on its own.”

“Right, yes. So.”

“I'll leave you to it, then. Do try not to -”

“Do you want to watch a movie?” Tony blurted out, and Loki stared at him.

He stared at him for quite some time.

“I'm sorry?” Loki said eventually, hesitant.

“A movie,” Tony repeated. “Do you want to watch one? We can go up to the penthouse - order pizza, maybe, and just, you know. Watch a movie.”

For a moment, Tony wondered if he'd actually managed to make Loki's silver tongue speechless (If so, _wow. _That deserved an applause, thank you.) But then Loki blinked and nodded, lips curling into a smirk.

“And what shall we watch?”

❄

The answer to that: _The Wizard of Oz._ Tony didn't particularly like the movie, but he thought that everyone in the tower should have seen it. He liked having people to hate things with. Sadly, it felt like Loki didn't _not_ like it - he said he'd enjoyed the book, mostly because he was amazed that stories like this were what children were told on Earth. Apparently, children's books on Asgard involved a bit more blood and manslaughter.

The whole thing was a bit ridiculous, wasn't it? Here Tony was, sitting on the sofa with a more or less former enemy, two feet apart, eating pizza and watching a kids movie that was almost eighty years old. And Tony was enjoying it.

Mostly, anyway. The two feet apart thing left room for improvement.

He didn't even watch the movie, really. He thought about _things_ instead, and only stopped thinking about them when Loki said something that demanded a reply and some bickering - flirting or fighting, Tony still wasn't sure.

_Are we friends?_ He wanted to ask, but that was a ridiculous thing to ask, so he didn't. Loki would have laughed at him. Hell, Tony would have laughed at _himself_, because really, friends? Tony had never been good at making friends. He was good at charming people, yes, and dozens people claimed they were his friends even though they were simply business partners or similarly rich. Hundreds of people wanted to be friends with him while what they really wanted was to be friends with his money or fame or preferably both, and Tony - Tony didn't have a lot of friends. There was Rhodey, of course, and Happy and Pepper, but he hadn't talked to Pepper in almost a year because he'd managed to mess that up, so maybe there were only Rhodey and Happy now. And the other Avengers, who _were_ important to him by now, no matter that they were a bunch of heroic bastards. (He was a bastard, too, definitely, but heroic? Bets were still off.)

And now, Loki.

Tony didn't even _know_ Loki. He only knew that he'd been a prince once and that he'd disappeared for a year before invading Earth, that he was a skilled mage and a prankster, that he was adopted and turned blue now and then because he was apparently not Asgardian. That he read earthly children's books in his free time and was fascinated by robots, that he liked broccoli on pizza and was very odd in general, that one smirk of him could mean approximately eighteen different things, that -

“I don't quite understand what the lion's problem is,” Loki said, and Tony blinked at him.

“Huh?”

Glancing at him, Loki plucked mushrooms from Tony's last slice of pizza and threw them away. (Tony knew that Loki's appetite was impressive, so he always left one or two slices of his own pizza for the god.) “The lion. He does not actually _need_ to be courageous, does he? He can just -,” He made an obscure gesture, “Roar, you see. He would just need to pretend for a few seconds.”

Tony wondered if Loki might be a bit tipsy. He'd drunken about a glass and a half of some kind of Asgardian drink he'd conjured up, was that enough to make a god tipsy? Well. This god's face was a little flushed, so maybe it was.

“Maybe he's scared of roaring,” Tony replied. “Do you have lions in Asgard?”

“No,” Loki said, frowning. “I looked them up when I read the book.”

“I don't understand the tin man's problem,” Tony announced. “Having no heart would make a lot of things easier.”

“I suppose it would,” Loki agreed, laughing. “Maybe also a little more boring, though.”

Tony drew his legs up onto the sofa, cradling his glass with scotch in his lap. “A _lot_ of people think I don't have a heart.”

Loki stayed quiet for a while. He'd picked up his glass, too, and was now circling the rim of it with his fingertip. “I don't understand how anyone could think that,” he said eventually, his tone very quiet. It could have been sarcasm, but it wasn't.

And because Tony didn't know how to deal with that, he snorted a laugh. “We don't understand a lot of things.”

“But we still understand more things than everyone else,” Loki added pointedly, and Tony agreed with another laugh.

He also wondered if the word _we_ meant that they were, in fact, friends.

“Hey,” he said after a moment. “Does Thor know that you're coming to the workshop now and then?” _Now and then_, as in _every night._

Loki had emptied his glass and set it away, apparently not planning to fill it again. “Yes,” he replied matter-of-factly. “We share a floor. And while he is an idiot, he does notice when I leave this regularly.” He hesitated, then added, “I also haven't been… actively trying to hide it.”

“That's fine,” Tony hurried to say. “It's not like it's a secret or anything.”

A smirk - _meaning number four_, Tony thought, _bitterness. “_I imagine your teammates weren't pleased.”

“Our teammates.”

“Your teammates.”

“_Our_ teammates have to deal.”

Loki rolled his eyes, but let it go. “Have you told them about… what I have been doing?”

“No,” Tony said, eyeing the other carefully. “Couldn't, really, because I have no idea what you're doing.”

“Ah.” Loki nodded slowly. “Good.”

Silence, after that. Tony stared blankly at the TV screen for a while, not really watching or listening, and then he asked, “What _are_ you doing?”

Loki stilled. He was looking at the TV, too, though Tony doubted that he was paying attention. He already thought that he wouldn't get an answer, but eventually Loki said, “I told you.”

“No,” Tony replied. “No, you told me that you're a different species and showed me your blue finger. And, as I already said, that didn't explain everything.”

Loki closed his eyes. He'd been sitting there almost relaxed, but now his shoulders were tense, his jaw clenched, knuckles turning white because he was clasping his pants.

Tony recognized that, of course. He'd been there.

“Hey, Loki,” he said, trying to sound soothing. “It's okay, I'm sorry I asked, you don't have to -”

“I am trying,” Loki interrupted him, ”to get used to that version. I have to. It's been a hindrance in the past, and I cannot let it remain one.”

His voice wasn't shaking, not even a little. It was just quiet, monotone, and maybe not altogether as smooth as it usually was, but still. Sometimes Tony was a bit creeped out by the absolute control Loki had over his voice, his body, his expression.

He swallowed and thought Loki's words over. “That… version?”

“You saw it, didn't you?”

“Yes, but - but I don't understand why you have to get used to it. Or why that requires a freezer.”

“The _whys_ are nothing you need to concern yourself with.”

Tony looked at Loki for a while, then averted his eyes. “Okay,” he said. “JARVIS, rewind the movie to the point we stopped watching, please.”

JARVIS did, and after a few minutes Loki relaxed again. Tony felt a bit better, then.

❄

They were friends, weren't they?

Fuck.

❄

Tony didn't have a problem about being friends with Loki. Not really. He _liked_ Loki, he did, and no matter what the other Avengers said, he'd come to know that Loki wasn't actually a _villain_. He wasn't the next Sauron, he didn't want world domination, and it didn't seem like he was planning to trigger the apocalypse anytime soon, either. No, he was oddly… neutral. He fought with the Avengers because that was his best chance to survive, but actually he was on his own side. Tony wasn't sure what Loki _wanted_, but he knew that hurting people wasn't on the god's list of favorite pastimes. Oh, of course, he didn't have any qualms hurting or even killing people when it was necessary, but that was all it was - a means to an end. Tony didn't know if that made anything better, but it was something, right? Reassuring, even, to know that, while Loki wasn't a good person, he also wasn't exactly a bad one. He was just a person, like the rest of them.

As long as Loki remained as mentally stable as he was now - which wasn't _that_ mentally stable, Tony knew, but stable enough that he wouldn't go on a high-of-power killing spree again -, Loki wasn't a threat to the universe. A pain in its ass, maybe. But that was okay. That Tony could deal with, because it meant that being friends with Loki wasn't high treason or anything, even though it made Tony's preferences in friends a bit questionable.

So. Being friends with Loki was fine. Totally fine. He didn't know if Loki was fine with it - he wasn't exactly the type to come up to the penthouse and offer Tony friendship bracelets - but Tony was reasonably sure that Loki at least _liked_ him somehow. Or you know, at least he tolerated his presence, and he hadn't said no a single time so far when Tony had asked if Loki would be up to another movie night.

The problem was the following: Tony didn't know if he was okay with being _just_ friends.

And that was just ridiculous, wasn't it? But Tony couldn't help it. Loki was - okay, for one thing, he was one of the hottest men Tony had ever had the pleasure to lay his eyes on, and he'd laid his eyes (and several other body parts) on a lot of hot people in his life. Loki wasn't just easy on the eyes, though, he was also clever and challenging and simply good company, and they got along in a way Tony hadn't encountered often. Not at all, in fact. And Loki wanted him, too; Tony was fairly certain. The rare moments when they touched - brushing past each other in the workshop, fingertips connecting at the rim of a glass, shoulders bumping in the kitchen -, they lingered on a little longer than necessary. And Loki looked at him sometimes, when he thought Tony wouldn’t notice, looked him up and down with an appreciative flicker in his eyes; Tony couldn’t _not_ notice that. He wasn’t sure if Loki wanted them to be friends, but _some_ sort of want played into it, that was certain.

So that was a good premise, wasn’t it? Right. A wonderful premise.

Tony sucked at relationships.

Not that he wanted this to be a relationship, mind you. He was still trying to convince himself that he didn’t want them to be anything except friends, in fact. But sometimes he couldn’t help but wonder about the, well. About the _potential_. He wondered about it when he was with Loki, when they watched another movie or drank together or even when they were just in the same room, not even talking, each doing his own thing. He also wondered about it when he was in bed or in the shower now and then, but that was a different sort of wondering.

But Tony sucked at relationships, every kind of them, and he’d actually thought he was done with them, for good. The wormhole had ruined him, and every tiny bit of potential that had ever been. He _was _done with it. He didn’t want to try again, and certainly not with Loki. And sex - well. Tony didn’t really feel like it, anyway; he was too tired, too wrapped up in work, too chaotic.

He should have known that that was exactly _it_, for Loki. What with him being the God of Chaos and stuff.

“Truth or dare,” Tony said one evening, when they sat on the floor in his living room, each on one side of the low sofa table. Loki’s feet peeked out on Tony’s side.

“I’m sorry?” Loki looked at him, brows raised. His eyes were a little glassy, so Tony probably wasn’t the only one who was reasonably tipsy already. The god’s arms were resting on the table, chin propped on his hands, hair a bit disarrayed. (Stunning.)

“Truth,” Tony knocked over an empty bottle and turned it so that it was pointing at Loki, “or dare?”

Loki's brows rose even higher, eyes flickering between Tony and the bottle. “Truth.”

Oh. That meant Tony had to come up with a question, right? ”Uh. Are you drunk?”

“Not yet.” Loki turned the bottle to Tony. “Truth or dare?”

“You have to spin it, y'know. Technically.”

“Truth or dare?”

“Eeerr. Dare.”

”Don't ever play that snowman song again.”

Tony frowned. “I don't think that's how it works.”

”You chose _dare_, so you have to do what I tell you. And you will never play that other awful song again, either.”

“What, _Cotton Eye Joe?_”

“Yes.”

“You love that song,” Tony said. “You still hum it now and then.”

Loki glared at him, impressively. “I do not.”

Tony pouted. “Have you ever even played this game before?”

“There is a similar game on Asgard.”

Tony blinked and, after a moment of consideration shrugged. “Party and drinking games are universal, huh? _Fine_, then. You'll never hear them again.”

“Wonderful,” Loki said dryly. “Your turn.”

Tony spun the bottle, then gave it another soft nudge to make sure it pointed at Loki. “Truth or -”

“Truth.”

Tony squinted at him. “That's _boring_, Lo.”

Loki just gave him an unimpressed look and took a sip of his drink.

“Okay,” Tony said with a sigh, rearranging his legs into a more comfortable position under the table. His butt was starting to dislike sitting on the floor. “What're you doing in that freezer of yours?”

”Summoning a demon.”

Tony squinted harder. “Right. What kind of demon?”

“Whatever answers first,” Loki replied, shrugging. “I'm curious about them. I have never met one before.”

Tony took his glass and downed the rest of his scotch. “Should've known better than to play this with the God of _Lies._”

Loki's grin was brilliant. He stood up, which involved some awkwardly scooting back on the floor and kicking Tony beneath the table, and went to get Tony another bottle of scotch. He was still walking in a straight line, but the fact that he didn't procure the bottle with magic spoke for itself. A bit tipsy indeed.

When he came back, he sat down on the table, on Tony's side, and put his feet on the sofa. “Truth or dare?” He asked.

“Truth.”

“I thought that's boring?”

Tony poked Loki's thigh. “You don't get to judge, princess. Truth.”

Loki looked at him for a moment. “You never sleep. Why?”

“Cause I like being awake. And I don't _never_ sleep. I pass out sometimes.”

“That does not count,” Loki said.

“So does.”

“Passing out doesn't count, JARVIS, does it?”

“_No, Mr. Liesmith. It certainly doesn't._”

Loki raised his glass toward the ceiling, toasting to the AI. To Tony he said, “See?”

Tony glared at him. “You two have to stop playing chess with each other.”

“Would you like to play chess with me?” Loki asked.

“I've never liked chess.”

“A shame,” Loki breathed, and then he leaned in for a kiss.

And _that_ was altogether unexpected. Only that it wasn't, it really, really wasn't. But it should have been. Tony didn't _want_ them to kiss and he'd been fairly sure that they wouldn't, simply because it would all just end in a big, awful, fucked up disaster.

Needless to say, he buried his hands in Loki's hair and kissed back.

Loki made a soft sound, a hum, low and pleased. His cold hand came up to cradle Tony's jaw, make sure he stayed exactly were he was. His mouth tasted sharp and sweet; Tony wondered if the drink Loki always conjured up tasted like that. It all got to Tony's head within seconds, made him lightheaded, and he tightened his grip on Loki's now definitely disarrayed hair to pull him closer. Loki got the hint and climbed off the table and right into Tony's lap. The space between the table and the sofa was narrow, so they had to press close to each other. It was a good place for kissing, Tony thought.

Time passed drop by drop, slow and sticky. Tony felt like the entire tower was empty except for them. The kiss had long deepened, Loki licking into Tony's mouth surprisingly carefully. The way he kissed was altogether a surprise - slow and deep, not at all hurried, not even _rough_. A little bit clumsy at the start, even. It wasn't like Tony had thought it would be. (Yes, fine, he'd thought about this. He'd thought about this a lot, too much.) It was better.

When Loki eventually pulled away, they were both breathing hard. Tony refused to let go of Loki and grasped his shirt tighter, trying to make him stay. It didn't seem like Loki intended to leave. He kissed the corner of Tony's mouth, then his cheek, hips grinding down. Tony gasped at the feeling. They were both hard in their pants, had been for a while now, and half-heartedly Tony wondered why they hadn't yet done something about it. He couldn't remember the last time he'd actually _made out_ with something like this, as if there was nothing they could do but kiss, as if they had all the time in the world. Not even with Pepper -

“Anthony,” Loki whispered, voice and breath brushing Tony's jaw and interrupting his line of thought.

“Hm?”

Loki kissed his jaw, and then touched his fingertips to Tony's temple. Even in the dim light Tony could see that Loki briefly went cross-eyed - which was just as adorable as it was disturbing -, and then there was a sudden, very unpleasant feeling flashing through Tony's forehead. Then, clarity.

“Uh,” Tony said. ”Did you. Did you just sober me up?”

“Yes,” Loki replied. His eyes weren't glassy anymore, just dark, the pupils dilated. “Say 'truth', please.”

Tony swallowed. His fingers were digging into Loki's sides, and he still didn't want to let go. “Truth.”

Loki let out a breath. “Do you want me?”

Tony stared at him. His mouth was dry, and he did, fuck, he _did._ “Yeah.”

“I want to hear it.”

“Loki -”

“I _want_,” Loki repeated, his voice quiet and raw, “to hear it.”

Tony wasn't entirely sure if it was a tone he was meant to hear. Something about it made him pull Loki even closer, pressing his own lips against a cool mouth for a second, drinking up Loki's gasp.

“I do,” he muttered against Loki's lips. “I _do._ Want you. Have been for - for weeks. Months. I -”

Loki kissed him.

❄

“So,” Tony said the next morning. “That happened.”

“Yes,” Loki agreed, his voice still a little raspy from sleep. “It did.”

Tony turned his head to look at the god, who was curled up on his side, looking utterly satisfied with himself. They were in Tony’s bedroom, in Tony’s bed, and they hadn’t slept a lot last night. Loki’s tousled hair and the marks on his neck - Tony vaguely remembered biting down there - served as evidence.

Tony looked back up at the ceiling. Loki was watching him, he knew, and it made him goddamn uncomfortable. It had already made him goddamn uncomfortable when he’d woken up a few minutes ago and found Loki already awake, looking at him.

“So, you,” Tony began, but had to start again, “You’ve been wanting this too?”

“Obviously.”

“Why?”

Loki snorted. “Please, Stark. I don’t have to tell you that you are an attractive man, do I?”

“No,” Tony said, frowning at the ceiling. “So that’s all, then, right?”

Loki didn't look at him. “Of course.”

Of course.


	3. Chapter 3

In the great scheme of things, nothing much changed. They still hung out every few days, in the workshop or in the penthouse, and they talked and flirted and bantered. It all stayed the same, all the way down to the rare but lingering touches. Only that they led to sex now and then. Not every time they saw each other, no, but… regularly. Regularly enough for Tony to get used to it, to look forward to it - and plan on it.

No big deal, right? Tony had done the friends-with-benefits thing before. Well, the benefits part of it, at least. He’d never had a lot of friends - Rhodey or Happy had never been so inclined, and Pep… That hadn’t gone that well, in the end. Point was, it was just sex. And Tony could deal with that. Loki was his _friend_ \- his odd, arrogant, genius prankster of a friend - and Tony _liked_ him; he didn’t want to lose him. He didn’t want to fuck this up.

He had figured something out, though. It had been obvious enough, probably, but it had still taken him some time. Loki wanted them to be friends. He actually liked Tony, probably; otherwise he wouldn’t spend any time with him. But he didn’t want _Tony_ \- he wanted to be wanted. Tony just happened to be the first to do so. How he knew he was the first? Because Loki looked at him like he’d hung the moon, every time he said that he wanted him. Because that expression always turned into something smug and satisfied, but stayed raw and hesitant at the edges; Loki was always, _always_ surprised that he was wanted. But Tony did want him, and Loki wanted him because of that, and in thirty years Loki would leave Earth and most likely never return. Given the hole in his chest and his oh so peaceful lifestyle, chances were that Tony would already be dead when Loki left.

It hurt. A bit. That addicting kind of hurt you couldn’t get enough of because it’s still sweet enough to feel amazing, just also bitter enough to be really fucking annoying.

He spent a lot of his time watching Loki, nowadays. The god had his own nook in Tony’s workshop by now, where he read or worked on some kind of spells or his newest pranks; a steady and quiet presence in the room. It was surprising, how quiet Loki could be. He must have spent a thousand years being quiet to get this good at it, Tony thought sometimes.

He was thinking about that again right now, so maybe that was why he said, “Tonight’s movie night.”

Loki glanced up from his book, but only briefly. “Alright. Would you like me to come up after?”

“No, I mean -” Tony sighed and turned away from the blueprint he’d been working on. “You could come.”

Loki smirked. “Oh, I plan to.”

Tony had to snort a laugh. “To our movie night, gutterbrain. You could come to our movie night.”

Loki looked up properly at that, smirk replaced by a frown. “Have you forgotten how it ended last time I tried?”

“Nope, but now you’re -”

“Say ‘a part of the team’ and I _will_ stay in my rooms tonight.”

Tony rolled his eyes and looked back at his blueprint. “Friend. Now you’re my friend, and I’d like you to be there. The others are boring.”

There was a long pause.

“Oh,” Loki said then, very quietly. “Of course.”

Tony had to do a double take. “Wait, did you - did you just say yes?”

“No,” Loki said, turning the page even though he wasn't actually reading anymore, Tony was sure. “I said 'of course'.”

“Smartass. So you're coming, then?”

“Yes,” Loki said. “But I won't hesitate to leave if they get annoying.”

“Yeah, no, that's fair. Cool.”

Loki smiled - an actual smile this time, not a smirk. It faded again after a few moments, though, and then he asked, “Do they know?”

“That we're friends? Yeah, sure.”

Loki just looked at him, unimpressed. Tony gave in after just a few seconds.

“No, they don't,” he said, tapping away at the hologram. ”Wouldn't be surprised if Nat suspects something, though.”

Loki hummed in agreement. “We have to be careful, then.”

Tony turned his head to stare at him. “Careful?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Loki's brows were pinched together in confusion. “The reason for that should be obvious, I think.”

Tony kept staring. “I don't mind if they know.”

“That hardly matters,” Loki said curtly, turning back to his book. “They mistrust you enough as it is.”

“They don't _mistrust_ me, they just -”

“- disdain you for being my - my friend,” Loki finished. His tone was probably meant to be sharp and scornful, but it had gone a little soft there at the end.

Tony snorted. “Yeah, right. Do you want to know how many fucks I give? Here's a tip: _less_ than one. Also, Natasha likes you, you know.”

”I'm very sure she doesn't.”

”She does.”

”She _accidentally_ threw one of her Bites at me, Anthony. Several times.”

”That's how she shows affection,” Tony said.

Loki didn't reply at first. His lips were pressed together, eyes averted in that way that told Tony Loki was reaching some kind of limit. He had a lot of limits, and while Tony had already gotten a lot better at recognizing and avoiding them - Loki hadn't teleported away from a conversation in some time - he was still on thin ice, sometimes.

“I don't want Thor to know,” Loki said in the end, his voice very firm, too even. ”If the others know, he knows.”

Tony swallowed and forced himself to look away. Right. Of course. “Okay,” he said, toneless.

He didn't want Thor to know. Of course he didn't want Thor to know. Thor would be happy about it, right? And he'd probably think they were… well, something else than friends who fucked on occasion. Of _course_ Loki didn't want Thor to know.

Tony didn't hear Loki standing up or his steps when he crossed the room - he _was_ good at being quiet -, but he did notice when Loki came to stand directly behind Tony, not touching yet but still close enough that Tony could _feel_ him standing there. And then Loki did touch, pressing close to Tony from behind and leaning down a bit to nuzzle Tony's nape.

“I didn't mean to upset you,” he murmured, so quietly that Tony almost believed he imagined hearing it. Loki had never apologized to him before, not for anything, and this came alarmingly close.

“I'm not upset,” Tony got out. He wasn't. He wasn't.

“Good,” Loki purred. He rested his chin on Tony's shoulder, and his cool hands danced first up and down his sides and then wandered to his hips, under his shirt. The muscles were tense, and of course Loki noticed. His hands stilled. “No? Would you rather work?”

“No,” Tony said, breath hitching. And then he added, just because he knew Loki would _love _it, “This is better than working, anyway.”

As expected, Loki let out a sharp - surprised - breath. His hand was flat on Tony's stomach now and pulled him even closer, making Tony gasp. Loki's teeth scraped over Tony's throat; he was smiling. Tony closed his eyes. He'd never fucked in the workshop before.

First time for everything, right?

  
  


❄

  
  


“Not one word,” Tony said later that day, in the evening. It was directed at Clint, mostly, who stared at both Tony and Loki as they sauntered into the room. Loki teleported the last steps to make sure they got the two seater on which Steve had just wanted to sit down.

“Er,” Steve said. “Hi.”

“Hello,” Loki replied.

Tony took the bowl from Steve's hands and sat down next to Loki, who frowned a bit at the popcorn. He liked it salty, Tony knew, and this was probably sweet. A second later, something green and golden rippled through the popcorn, and now it wasn't sweet anymore. Tony sighed and placed it in Loki's lap. Loki seemed satisfied.

The others stared at them. Tony was all of a sudden rather glad that Thor was in New Mexico at the moment. Loki sat next to him, his shoulders tense, still pretending to be interested in popcorn.

It was Natasha who broke the silence eventually. “Well,” she said. “What are we watching?”

“What about _Modern Times?_”, Steve suggested.

Clint groaned. “A silent movie? Come on.”

“Yeah, let’s,” Tony said, which was enough for JARVIS to put on the movie. To Loki, Tony said, “It’s Charlie Chaplin. You’ll like it.”

Loki raised a brow and ate some popcorn, but stayed quiet. He stayed quiet for the entire movie, actually; enough so that the others more or less forgot that he was even there. Maybe he also helped that along with a bit of magic, Tony couldn’t be sure. _He_ knew that Loki was there, and he caught all the little smirks and amused looks, and that was enough.

  
  


❄

  
  


The whole thing would have been a lot easier if Loki hadn't been as good in bed as he was. If he hadn't been as demanding and thorough and fucking _addictive_ as he was.

Sometimes, Tony had had the feeling that Loki wasn't as experienced as he seemed - when Tony had let the god fuck him for the first time, for example, or when he blushed (freaking _blushed_) a little too hard at some things Tony had said. But that had only been in the beginning; by now Loki was bold and confident enough to make _Tony_ blush. Almost, at least, because Tony Stark did not actually blush. It came awfully close now and then, though.

But apart from Loki's tongue that was very deserving of its known title, Loki was just so… attentive. There was no other word for it, Loki was _attentive._ ”I can hardly let you leave my bed unsatisfied, can I?” He'd asked once, with a smirk - meaning number seven, _temptation._ And, to this day, he'd kept true to his word. He'd learned how to drive Tony insane quicker than any other lover before, and he was a lot better than any of them by now, too. He listened whenever Tony told him what he wanted - often _asked_ Tony to tell him what he wanted, preferably with clear words and in detail - and then proceeded to _remember everything Tony had said._ That wasn't only the case during sex, though, he also listened to Tony outside of the bedroom. And maybe that was what made him so addictive, too - he didn't mind Tony's rambles or leaping thoughts; he actually, truly and _voluntarily_ listened.

Apart from that, he made the most gorgeous sounds.

So, if all of this simply hadn't existed, Tony might have been able to stop. He might have been able to just not see Loki for a while and put an end to this ridiculous _crush_ he was nursing, put an end to them landing in bed every other week. Loki was so casual about the whole thing that he probably wouldn't even have minded, and they would be able to stay friends. Because Tony wanted them to stay friends, and he had the feeling that, if they continued like this, it _would_ end in a disaster sooner or later.

As it was, Tony couldn't put an end to anything. That really couldn't be expected of him, not when Loki smirked and kissed and fucked like he did - some addictions were impossible to drop.

❄

Things got even more complicated, of course. Because they always did.

They were in the workshop - not in the same room, but still. Loki had disappeared into his freezer room two or three hours ago, like he still did every few nights. Tony was busy studying another chapter of the dwarfish book. He was about to understand a very important point - he could see that dawning understanding flicker before his eyes, almost - when a series of loud bangs and then an even louder crash nearly made him fall off his chair.

The silence that followed was mind-numbing, and a few seconds passed in which Tony wondered whether he was having acoustic hallucinations now, too, but then JARVIS’ voice made him understand that no, he wasn’t.

“_Sir, would you move and look after Mr. Liesmith, please? I think -”_

Tony had already jumped up and hurried into the adjoining room, where he was confronted with a sigh he hadn’t exactly expected, but that still didn’t actually surprise him.

The door to the freezer room - made of metal that was way more than just a few inches thick - had been hoisted out of its hinges, and judging by the bumps and dents in the metal, it hadn’t been unhinged gently. And then there was Loki, of course; still on his hands and knees, shoulders hunched, breathing heavily. And blue, from head to toe.

Tony wanted to hurry to his side, but he hadn’t forgotten what happened last time, so he approached his friend only slowly. His eyes widened when he saw that Loki was _shaking_.

“Loki? Hey, are you -”

“Don’t,” Loki gritted out, “_don’t_ -”

“Okay,” Tony said at once. “I - I’ll stay right here. Alright? I won’t come closer.”

There was ice spreading out under Loki’s hands. His finger, curling and trembling against the floor, looked like they were frozen over themselves. From the sounds Loki made, he wasn’t getting enough air.

“What’s wrong? Loki, what’s wrong? Tell me, then we can -”

“I can’t,” Loki said through still clenched teeth, then got interrupted by his own gasping for breath. “I can’t - change _back_. I -”

“Okay,” Tony said again, even though absolutely nothing was okay, even though he had no idea what was going on or what to do. “Okay, I don’t - I don’t know how that works usually, but can you - you should probably calm down, then -”

Loki let out a noise that sounded suspiciously like a desperate caricature of a laugh. Tony had never hated a sound this much. He inched a bit closer, trying to avoid the ice on the floor that was steadily getting thicker. The temperature in the room had already dropped what felt like about twenty degrees.

Tony did what he always did when he didn’t know what to do: he started to talk.

“Nobody else is here, okay? It’s just you and me - and JARVIS. He’s still pissed that you beat him in chess yesterday, by the way. And I - I’m still trying to understand that book you gave me, but it doesn’t make any sense right now. Probably because I haven't slept in two days. It’s just us here, Lo. We won’t hurt each other. You just take all the time you need and change back, and then we can go up and watch a movie or something and order pizza, and if you want we can -”

“Would you -,” Loki began, then took a deep, quivering breath, “_stop_ talking.”

Tony pressed his lips together. He sat down on the floor that was indeed very cold. Loki’s breathing was getting a bit more even and controlled, but he was still trembling all over. He slowly sat back on his heels, jittery fingers digging into his pants that already looked stiff and white from the ice, just like the tunic he was wearing. Loki’s eyes were pinched shut, as if he was in pain, and his hair was hanging into his face. Tony started to freeze - actually, the entire room started to freeze; he could _watch_ the ice creeping up the walls. Tony ignored it.

They sat there for almost twenty minutes, in utter silence. Tony wanted to fill it, but he knew that look on Loki’s face by now - he needed to concentrate, and he could concentrate best when he was quiet. So Tony kept quiet and tried not to look at Loki too much, because he also knew that Loki didn’t actually want to be looked at right now.

Eventually, the blue faded from Loki’s skin, and the ice on the floor melted. Loki sat down on the floor properly, his movements slow and measured, _tired_. Legs stretched out in front of him, he brushed his hair out of his face and then looked at his hands. They were wet from the melting ice.

“So,” Tony said, “I guess I’ll just order a new door.”

Loki glanced at him and then at the ruined door. “Yes, please,” he said, his tone perfectly even. He had himself under control again.

“It has a handle, you know. You could’ve just opened it.”

Loki visibly swallowed. “I might not have… thought things through.”

Tony looked past Loki into the freezer room. It was completely empty. “Loki,” he said, very carefully. “What are you doing in there?”

“I told you.” Loki ran his hands first over his shirt and then over his pants, bringing them back to their original state. “I am getting used to…” He trailed off.

“Yes, but - but _why_? Why in there?”

“The cold forces me to change.”

“And how is that supposed to make you get used to anything?”

Loki stayed silent for a long time, but then he looked up and met Tony’s eyes. “You do not know what I am, do you? Thor hasn't told you.”

Tony blinked. “No. I mean, I know that you're not Asgardian.”

Loki nodded, then looked away again. “It doesn't matter to you, I suppose.”

By Loki's tone Tony could tell that it was a question, even though there wasn't a question mark. It wasn't an _it doesn't matter anyway_, but a _please tell me that it doesn't._

“Of course it does,” Tony said, careful. “It matters because it's you, because I'm interested. But it won't make a difference.”

Loki was studying Tony's face. The look on his own was unreadable; he didn't show whether that had been a good answer or not. “You can't promise that,” he said, which made Tony think that it hadn't been a _perfect_ answer.

“You should know me well enough by now to know that if somebody tells me I _can't_, I fucking _will_.” Tony lifted his shoulders, one corner of his mouth pulling up into a smirk. “It won't make me like or want you any less, promise.”

Loki's expression crumbled for the briefest of moments, and he averted his eyes again to hide it. Took a breath, then slowly said, “I would like to be drunk for this. A little bit, at least.”

Tony grinned and got on his feet, holding out a hand to help Loki up as well. “_That_ can be arranged.”

❄

An hour later, they were once again sitting on Tony's sofa. Loki was huddled up in one corner, legs drawn up against his chest, balancing his glass on his knees. Tony sat right next to him with his arm on the backrest, turned toward his friend.

They were both still pretty much sober. Loki hadn't even finished his first glass, and Tony knew by now that that wasn't enough to make the mage seriously tipsy. They hadn't talked a lot, and Tony wasn't even sure if they would. But Loki seemed a bit more relaxed now, though, and that had been the main goal of this.

Tony was almost surprised when Loki did speak up eventually, his voice kind of small. Tony wanted to hug him.

“Have you ever heard of the Jötnar?”

“Gesundheit.”

Loki was not amused.

Tony shrugged again. “Nope, can't say I have.”

Loki's eyes were still cast down, fixed on his thumb that was drawing patterns on his thigh, as if following invisible lines. “They are also called Frost Giants.”

“Oh. Okay. So you're a - a Jo…”

“Jotun,” Loki helped him out, his voice a little tight. “Jotun, singular. Jötnar, plural.”

“Ah. Alright. Don't expect me to pronounce that correctly.”

That earned him the tiny beginning of a smile, but no reply. Tony looked at Loki and thought it over; the name of Loki's race didn't actually _explain_ anything.

“Makes sense, I guess,” Tony said after a moment. “What with the freezing and all.” He didn't really understand the _giant_ part of the name - Loki was tall, but not giantly so -, but he bit back on a comment about that in the last second; he didn't want to be rude right now.

Loki nodded slowly. “Jotunheim is a very cold world,” he murmured, still staring at his knees.

“So that's why you need those low temperatures to, ah. Turn?”

Loki's mouth twitched. “Something like that, yes.”

Tony swirled his drink around in the glass. “Okay. So, why does this whole thing make you so uncomfortable?”

Loki frowned and minutely shook his head, needing a moment to form a reply. Tony waited until Loki said, “The Jötnar have always been enemies of the Aesir.”

Tony's brows shot up. “And how come the _royal family_ of Asgard adopted you?”

“I was not adopted, per se,” Loki said. “I was taken. My real… That is, the people who -” He broke off, a frustrated look scurrying over his face.

“Your birth parents?” Tony suggested, and Loki let out a breath, nodding.

“They threw me away,” he said then, matter-of-factly. “I was a runt, so they left me to die. Odin had just defeated the Jötnar in the last great war, and he… stumbled over me. He took me to Asgard, where I was raised as the second prince and led to believe that I _was_.”

Ah, shit. “So you never knew.”

Loki shook his head, the movement a bit clipped. “I found out only… recently. Shortly before -” He trailed off and made a vague hand gesture, then lifted his glass to his lips and downed the rest of his drink in one go.

“Okay,” Tony said slowly. “So, that sucks, but - I think I still don't _understand._”

For the first time in minutes, Loki met Tony's gaze. The look in his green eyes was sharp, almost angry, but it took only a moment until it softened again. “Of course not,” he said, oozing bitterness. “You do not know what the Jötnar _are._”

“Tell me, then.”

Loki just stared into his empty glass for a long time. “When a mother tells her child to behave, here on Midgard,” he said then, making Tony blink in surprise, “what does she threaten with?”

“Er. Threaten?” Tony thought about it with a frown. He felt he already knew where this was going, and he didn't like it one bit. “What do you mean, like - _stop annoying me or the bogeyman will come and get you?”_

“Yes.” Loki nodded with some sort of bitter satisfaction. “Now, when Thor and I were children, his parents would tell us, _behave, or the Jötnar will come and get you. They like eating misbehaved children for supper._” He paused, swallowing visibly. “Or they would tell us scary stories about the Jötnar to entertain us, sometimes. About Grandfather Borr, who fought against the strongest and cruelest Jotun and brought home his head - _don't go into Father's trophy room, for the head hangs on the wall and may still bite when you come too close_. Or about Father, who ended the Jötnar's reign of terror and vanquished them - _see, this is what I took from them. Don't touch it, it is cold enough to make you lose your fingers._”

He stopped to take a breath. His teeth were clenched, the grip of his fingers tight around the glass. The smile pulling at the corner of his mouth was the coldest and saddest fucking thing Tony had ever seen.

“Thor swore to kill them all when he couldn't even hold a sword properly yet,” Loki finished, his tone a bit more even now. His glass was full again.

Tony's throat felt oddly tight. ”Loki -”

“It was not him who did that in the end, though,” Loki said, almost sounding like he was in a hurry to get the words out. “I did. It was me.”

“Loki,” Tony repeated, voice a bit brittle. “It was – it was you who did _what?_”

“I killed them,” Loki said simply. “Maybe not all of them, but I destroyed the better part of their world. I don't believe a lot of them have survived. I killed my birth father, too.”

Tony stared at him.

Loki gave him a smile, lovely and entirely fake, thumb idly tracing the rim of his glass. “So? Have you broken your promise yet?”

Tony hadn't. He _hadn't_, and maybe that was what made him realize how hard he had fallen. He'd known, of course, from the very start, but he had still tried to _deny_ it. There was no denying it anymore, though - he still adored Loki as much as he had before, despite what he had just heard. It didn't change anything, it didn't make a difference. It didn't _matter_. And what did that say about him?

Nothing good, for sure.

Snatching the glass from Loki's hand and tossing it aside was easy. Loki actually flinched at the sound when it shattered, eyes going wide, smile fading. Maybe he wanted to say something, but then Tony was already kissing the words right off Loki's lips. They parted for his tongue just a second later when Loki let out a sound that was positively _wrecked_ and sent a pleased shiver up and down Tony's spine. Loki wrapped his arms around him and pulled until Tony was sitting in his lap, until they were as close as they could possibly be while still wearing all their clothes.

That latter bit should be changed, most definitely.

“Bed,” Tony rasped as soon as Loki stopped kissing him long enough for Tony to take a breath.

Loki nodded even as he pressed his mouth to Tony's again, and the room around them shimmered and faded and turned into a different one. Loki's hands were tearing at Tony's shirt, pulling it over his head a little roughly. Then they were kissing again, teeth clashing without them giving a damn about it, and Loki's fingers dug into Tony's sides hard enough to hurt. Tony didn't give a damn about that either.

It didn't take long until Loki pulled away and turned Tony around to make him get on his hands and knees - he tossed Tony around, really, then took hold of his hips to pull them up again. Tony made a sound that started as a surprised yelp and ended as a whimper.

It was the first time Loki stilled, bend over Tony's back and breathing harshly. “No?”

Tony let out a growl that was half muffled by the mattress, then turned his head so that he could breathe properly and say, “Don't you _dare_ stop, I swear I - _oh_, fuck.”

Loki had pulled down Tony's pants and boxers in one single movement. His hand wandered down between Tony's ass cheeks, and there was the soft tingle of his magic before he could suddenly feel a certain slickness - it was a feeling he was rather used to by now, and he fucking _adored_ magic.

A second later Loki was already pressing in, a strangled sound falling from his lips. Tony echoed it, fingers grasping the sheets as he tried to breathe away the burning stretch of it, the slightest hint of discomfort that was already blurring into thrill. Loki's movements were slow, but not gentle, and Tony was sure that the god's hands were leaving bruises on his hips. Tony stifled his gasps and moans against the mattress and didn't know whether to concentrate on Loki's thrusts or the drag of Tony's own cock against the bed sheets, until it all grew into one hazy and disjointed sort of pleasure that left him entirely unable to concentrate on anything at all.

He came before Loki, solely because Loki's hand took hold of Tony's cock and made sure that he did. Loki followed just a second later, while Tony was still trying to remember how thinking worked. He wasn't even really kneeling anymore, probably because Loki had more or less collapsed over him. The god's breathing was still ragged.

Tony managed a crooked smile. “I don't break my promises,” he muttered, surprised when he heard how rough his voice was.

Loki made a soft sound of acknowledgment and carefully pulled out, hands soothing Tony's sides when he winced. Tony wanted to roll over, but Loki gently kept him in place.

“One moment, please,” he said quietly and put his hands back where they had grabbed Tony's hips earlier. Tony shivered when he felt Loki's magic and realized that the bruises were probably gone now.

He looked back over his shoulder as well as he could. “Why'd you do that?”

Loki didn't meet his eyes. He had also vanished the mess they had made, apparently, because Tony didn't feel any wet spots when he tried to turn and sit up. He made an annoyed sound when he noticed that he was still wearing his goddamn pants - sort of, anyway; they were hanging somewhere around his knees.

“Hey, could you -” Both pants and boxers vanished. “Thanks.”

Tony could turn and sit up now without making a fool of himself, so he did and promptly winced – fuck, he would be sore tomorrow; apparently Loki hadn't healed much more than the bruises on Tony's hips. Loki was kneeling on the bed in safe distance, still wearing his tunic. His hair was a mess and he wouldn't look at Tony, hands fidgeting slightly in his lap.

“Hey,” Tony said, nudging his friend's knee with his toes. “Are you okay?”

“I didn't mean to,” was all Loki said.

Tony blinked. “It's fine, Lo.”

“No, I -”

“_Yes_. It's fine, I liked it. I mean, unless you didn't?”

“I did,” Loki said tonelessly.

_Uh oh._

“Come here,” Tony said softly, holding out his hands.

After a moment Loki obeyed. He didn't resist when Tony made them lie down, letting Loki tuck himself against Tony's side as he did usually when they were in bed together. He was trembling a little, so Tony rubbed his back in what he hoped were soothing circles and stared at the ceiling, wondering what the fuck he was supposed to do now.

  
  


❄

  
  


“What you're trying there,” Tony said a few hours later, after Loki had slept a bit and woken up again. “The getting used to it. I don't think it'll work like this.”

Loki rubbed his eyes, already scowling slightly. Maybe he was just tired, maybe he didn't want to talk about this anymore. _Maybe _Tony didn't care about either of that right now, because there was no way he'd allow this to go on the way it had so far.

“I mean, I get it,” Tony continued when Loki stayed silent. “I think I do, anyway. I probably would have handled it the same way, but - you don’t really _believe_ that this will get you anywhere, do you?”

“It does not have to get me anywhere,” Loki replied, tone cold. “I only need to be able to control whether I change or not, and not -”

“Freak out when you do?” Tony raised a brow and rolled onto his side so that he could look at Loki properly. “Honey, you literally crashed through that door because you were panicking.”

“I was not panicking.”

“You totally were panicking. And it’s understandable, really. You can’t expect yourself to sit in an empty room for _hours _and then be fine with your blueness. You won’t come to terms with it like this.” Loki glared at him, but Tony just shrugged and gave him a not so apologetic smile. “It’s true, and you know it.”

Tony didn’t even want to imagine - he didn’t want to _think_ about Loki sitting in that damned room long enough that the cold made him change, with just his thoughts to keep him busy, staring at his blue hands and trying to get used to the sight. _He is trying to read a book_, JARVIS had said once, in the beginning of this, and now that suddenly made sense - trying, because Loki couldn’t concentrate on the words, could only think of the stories he’d been told as a child, by a family that had never been his and must have known that he would find out some day.

These thoughts left a bitter taste in _Tony’s_ mouth.

“You _saw_ me,” Loki said quietly, staring at the ceiling, lips twisted into the beginning of something cruel. “You saw what I can do, when I am like that. I nearly froze your entire workshop.”

“Okay, so you need to learn to control it.”

Loki huffed and sat up very abruptly, not looking at Tony. “_Control_ it! You have not the slightest idea what you are talking about, and you should stop meddling with things that are none of your business!”

Tony quirked an unimpressed brow and sat up as well. “You know what, nope. Actually, you should be thankful that I keep _meddling_, ‘cause otherwise we wouldn’t have become friends.”

That word also left a bitter taste in his mouth, but he could hardly do something against that.

“Friends,” Loki repeated sourly, giving Tony a look that was absolutely blank.

“Don’t deny it,” Tony said. “But, fine, you’re right. I don’t _really_ know what I’m talking about. But I’m here and I want to help, and you won’t set a single foot into that room again, not if I can help it.”

“I _need_ it to change,” Loki hissed.

“You said you wanted to learn to control when to change, too, right?” Tony countered. “You can start with that, then.” Loki was glaring at Tony again, but he ignored it. He was getting very good at ignoring Loki’s glares, he found. “You’ll learn to change when you want - or _not_ change when you don’t. And if you want to get comfortable with the whole thing, changing in situations that are a tad more _normal_ than sitting in a cell for hours could be a good place to start.”

“It’s not a _cell._”

“Might as well be. You certainly treat it as one.”

Loki looked away again. “You are the most insolent person I have ever met.”

“Thanks.”

“You don’t have the right to -”

“Nope, I know. I know. And the decision is yours, in the end, but - that’s still _my_ workshop down there. And my friends aren’t allowed to torture themselves in my workshop.”

“_You_ torture yourself in your workshop.”

Tony frowned. “When have I ever -”

“You work until you pass out,” Loki snapped. “You do not eat, you do not sleep, you drink too much. You talk to nobody for days on end and still you cannot stand to be alone with your thoughts, alone with _yourself_. How are you any better than me?”

Tony stared at him for a long moment. “Huh,” he said then. “Okay.”

Loki’s angry expression crumbled. “What?”

“Okay,” Tony repeated, then huffed a helpless laugh and shrugged, looking down at his fidgety hands. “I mean, you’re right. We’re both messed up. Congratulations. What do you want to do about it?”

Loki didn’t reply. He just sat there, looking unusually dumbfounded. He didn’t even _move_.

“You know what,” Tony said eventually. “Let’s, uh. Let’s make a deal.”

Loki’s eyes were fixed on him, wary. “A deal.”

“Yes. You won’t go back into that room and try to _get used to_ things another way. And I - I don’t know. I’ll eat three meals a day, or try to sleep. Whatever.”

Loki thought about it for a moment, inclining his head. “No,” he said then.

“What? Why no?”

“I don’t think I would be able to fulfill my part of the deal, and I prefer not to owe anybody anything.”

Tony took a breath. Fucking hell. “Loki. This isn’t a _business_ _deal_, you won’t owe me anything if things don’t work out. Okay? It’s just - I don’t know. Something to concentrate on. Motivation and stuff.”

“I do not know another way,” Loki said.

Tony needed a moment to get what he was talking about, then, “I literally just suggested another way. Did you listen?”

“I will not _get used to things_ by making this deal with you, or by _changing in normal situations_.” Loki scoffed. “What does that mean, anyway?”

“It means -”, Tony began, but had to pause because he actually needed to give it thought first. “I don't know, change when you’re brushing your teeth or preparing a prank for Clint or, hell, at the next movie night. Just during something that doesn’t make you connect your blueness with being trapped in a freezer room.”

“Could you stop calling it my ‘blueness’, please?”

“Sorry. Don’t really know what else to call it, though.”

“And I will never attend a movie night without my glamour.”

Tony blinked. “Your what?”

With a sigh, Loki gestured at himself. “My glamour. It’s what makes me look like an Aesir.”

“Oh,” Tony said. “Magic.”

“Naturally.”

“Okay.” Tony nodded. “You don’t have to, of course. Was just a suggestion.” He paused. “Why not, though?”

_Why not?_ Loki mouthed, eyes first just wide, then angry. “I cannot believe you have to ask that.”

“Hey, it’s a reasonable question -”

“You _saw me_,” Loki repeated sharply. “You do not expect me to show myself to _anyone_ like that, do you?”

“Er. You showed yourself to me? And I’m an Avenger, too, so -”

“You are a _fool_,” Loki hissed and got out of bed, getting dressed with but a quick hand gesture. “The most idiotic, insolent, _densest _person I have ever met!”

“You’re repeating yourself,” Tony informed him even as he hurried to stumble out of bed as well. He had the mind to pick up his boxers before he followed Loki out of the room. “Hey, can you wait for a sec? I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry.”

Loki stopped only because Tony had grabbed his wrist and held him back - but probably he also stopped because he’d wanted Tony to follow him. Otherwise he would have just teleported away.

“I didn’t mean to pressure you,” Tony told him, his hand still on Loki’s arm. “And if you don’t want anyone to see, that’s fine. Obviously.”

Loki still looked kind of pissed, but at least he didn’t vanish on the spot. “I do not want anyone else to see,” he said, his jaw clenched. “Especially not Thor.”

“Yes,” Tony said. “Yes, I got that. But - he knows, doesn’t he?”

Loki huffed. “Of course he does.”

“Just asking. So. Do we have a deal now or what?”

“You will not stop bothering me with this until I agree, will you?”

“Probably not, no.”

Loki heaved a sigh. “Fine, then. If you insist.”

Tony grinned, then unceremoniously pulled his friend into a hug. He didn’t really think about it, wasn’t even aware that they had never really hugged before until Loki froze in his arms. They had touched a lot, of course, knew what their bodies liked and disliked, but _hugging_? No, they hadn’t done that before.

Tony swallowed and already wanted to pull away again, but then Loki hesitantly wrapped his own arms around Tony, keeping him where he was. They both relaxed a few seconds later, when they realized that they both wouldn’t push the other way, and Tony closed his eyes. He didn’t want to let go, he realized. He liked this, everything about this. He wanted to do this more often.

_God_. _I’m fucked._

He didn’t know how much time passed, but it definitely hadn’t been long enough when Loki eventually spoke up.

“Did you _like_ what I told you?”

“Hmm?”

Loki shifted a little, turning his head so that he could speak into Tony’s ear. Tony tried not to shiver and failed. “I expected many things,” Loki said. ”I did _not_ expect you to pounce on me.”

“I didn't _like_ it,” Tony said at once, frowning, then repeated what he had thought earlier, “It was the saddest fucking thing I've ever heard.” He kept his eyes closed for a moment longer, then reluctantly pulled away to look at Loki, who let go of him at once. “I told you, though. That it won't make a difference.”

“You did,” Loki said, “but -”

“No.” Tony shook his head and patted Loki’s chest, shrugging. “No _buts_. We all…. We all aren’t _saints_, you know. You did something horrible? Welcome to the club. Try to do better, and nobody will judge you for it.” He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Well, except Steve, maybe. He likes to judge people sometimes. Just ignore him then.”

Loki studied him for a moment. “It’s not that easy, Anthony. You know that.”

“Yes, but - I don’t know, what do you want to hear? It sucks, but it doesn’t matter to me. I still - I mean, I’m still your -”

“Friend,” Loki filled in, and Tony let out a breath.

“Yes. Right.”

“We won’t hurt each other,” Loki said suddenly, sounding calm.

Tony stared at him. “Hm?”

“You said that, earlier.”

“Oh. Yeah. Guess I did.”

“It does sound like a good ground rule.”

Tony snorted a laugh. He didn’t know whether he was being made fun of or not. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Don’t know if we’ll manage, though, but - there’s no harm in trying, right?”

Loki nodded, smirking, and then they were done with the topic for the day.

Truth was, they had already failed. Because this? This _friends_ business, and Loki’s hair still being as messy as it was and Loki smirking at Tony like this and being just about _everything_ Tony wanted at the moment? Yeah.

That hurt a bit.

  
  


❄

  
  


Tony began to regret their deal when Loki showed up in the workshop around noon, with lunch.

“No,” Tony told him the second Loki dropped a takeout box on Tony's worktable.

“Three meals a day,” Loki reminded him, sounding every inch like the smug bastard he was. “And you already skipped breakfast.”

Tony scowled at him. They hadn't been together last night. “And how do you know that?”

“I asked JARVIS.”

Of course. “That's not fair,” Tony said, but he took the chopsticks Loki offered him and opened the box.

It smelled suspiciously like his favorite dish of his favorite Japanese restaurant. Loki didn't know that because of JARVIS, but because he and Tony ordered in from that place often enough.

“Oh,” Tony said. “Thanks.”

Loki hummed in acknowledgment and sat down on the table, already poking around in his own box. Tony stared at him.

“So,” he asked after some time. “How does the whole thing work, exactly?”

Loki glanced at him and slowly finished chewing. “Oh,” he said then and showed Tony his chopsticks. “Well, you take these and use them like this, see? Then you -”

Tony threw a noodle at him. “I literally taught you how to use chopsticks, asshole.”

Loki shot a minor glare at him as he plucked the noodle out of his hair. “Was that a challenge? If so, I'll have you know that I won every single food fight when I was a child.”

“You and Thor had food fights?”

“His parents were delighted.”

Tony nodded slowly and looked at his lunch, thinking again that he really didn't want to eat right now. Eating was so _boring._ “I meant the changing,” he said. “You know, into -”

“I'm aware,” Loki cut him off. “It's -”

“Say that it's none of my business and you'll lose a food fight for the very first time, I swear.”

“ - complicated,” Loki finished, his glare not so minor anymore. “And I have not actually… talked about… well. Not with anyone.”

“But you do know how it works?”

“Of course,” Loki said with a mild scoff. “It _is_ magic.”

“What exactly is a glamour, then?”

Loki sighed and put down the chopsticks. “An illusion, basically,” he explained. “Although a very good one. This one is impossible to see through, neither by anyone else or myself. It also doesn't merely fool the eyes.”

Tony thought that over, frowning. “Also touch, right? Like - you don't feel that cold when I touch you.”

“That is due to the glamour, yes.”

“But it's not shapeshifting?”

“Not quite, no.”

“What's the difference?”

“Do we have to turn this into a lesson about magical theory?”

Sensing that he'd once more reached a limit with this, Tony shrugged and let it be. “Fine, whatever. So you've got this glamour thing, and you can control it?”

Loki poked around in his food, avoiding Tony's gaze. “In theory, yes. To an extent.”

“Meaning?”

“I have worn it for all my life,” Loki said, a bit testily. “It is… quite literally like a second skin by now. It took me months to even become actually _aware_ of it.”

“So you can't control it _yet._”

Loki still wasn't looking at him. “I can put it back into place again after… changing. Shedding it is more difficult.”

“But these butt ass cold temperatures force you to?”

“Yes.”

“That sounds, uh. Like it sucks.”

Loki rolled his eyes, which probably meant that yes, it did suck. Tony frowned at his noodles. Thanks to Loki being his friend now, he knew some things about magic - usually, Loki was more than willing to talk about his powers, answering Tony's question with barely hidden eagerness and slightly flushed cheeks. It was one of Tony's favorite pastimes by now, listening to Loki talk about magic. This, though… Loki wasn't nearly as snappy as Tony had expected him to be, but there was still an air of tension and reluctance about him, which meant that Tony had to tread carefully.

“The new door for your freezer should be here in a few hours,” he said around a mouthful of noodles. “We can try it then, if you want?”

Loki studied him warily. “Try what, exactly?”

“Well,” Tony swallowed, “you can go in there and change, and then you can come out again. We'll watch a movie or something.”

“Fine,” Loki said, looking away again.

Tony narrowed his eyes at him. Loki was lying somehow, but Tony wasn't exactly sure in which way. “Hey. What's going on in your head, huh?”

Loki pointed at Tony's noodles with his chopsticks. “Eat your lunch.”

  
  


❄

  
  


Naturally, Loki did not leave the freezer room.

“Guess I should've known,” Tony muttered and sat down on his side of the brand new metal door, leaning against it. “Are you at least okay in there?”

It stayed silent for several long minutes. JARVIS had patched Tony's phone through to the speakers in Loki's room, but Loki didn't seem to be that keen on a heart-to-heart right now.

“Lokes, I'm not going anywhere. We have a deal, you know.”

Nothing. Tony put his phone on the floor and pulled up a holographic screen, tapping away at it until it showed the video feed of Loki's room. Loki sat directly on the other side of the door, legs drawn up, chin resting on his knees. Tony wiped the screen out again.

“I'll play _Frosty_ again if I have to.”

A few seconds passed, then Loki said, ”You promised not to.”

Tony smiled and leaned his head against the door. ”It wasn't really a _promise_, it was truth or dare. And I was drunk.”

“I don't like that song.”

“Okay, fine,” Tony said. “Would you prefer _Cotton Eye Joe?_”

“No,” Loki said at once, followed by a sigh. “You humans have no taste in music.”

“Hey, that's not fair. _My_ taste in music is perfect. JARVIS, play -”

“Not AC/DC, please,” Loki interrupted.

“Are you implying that you don't like AC/DC?”

“Yes.”

“You're on thin ice, Lo.”

“That keeps happening recently, yes,” Loki drawled.

Tony rolled his eyes. “Queen, then? What about Queen? I feel like you would've liked Freddie.”

Indifferent silence.

“J, give us some Queen,” Tony said, and regretted it three seconds later.

_Ooh, you make me live_

_Whatever this world can give to me_

_It's you, you're all I see_

_Ooh, you make me -_

“Mute,” Tony snapped, glaring daggers at the AI's nearest camera. The screen of his phone lit up with a message from JARVIS.

_I'm just trying to help, sir._

“Sure you are,” Tony muttered, then waited for Loki to start mocking him.

Oddly enough, Loki didn't. All he said was, “Step away from the door, please.”

“Are you going to crash through it again? 'Cause I just -”

“No, I am not,” Loki cut him off, sounding tired. “But I _am_ going to open it, and I would like there to be some distance between us.”

Tony frowned, but decided not to argue. He stood up and made a few steps away from the door, then called, “Okay, then. Come out and show me what you're wearing, Rock of Ages.”

“You are insufferable,” Loki said.

A few seconds later, the door opened and Loki stepped out. He was dressed in the clothes he usually wore around the workshop, linen pants and a simple tunic, bare feet. And he was definitely blue from head to toe.

“Hello there,” Tony said. “Look, I could use some help with that book. I still don't understand that chapter on magical power flows.”

Loki looked at him out of blood red eyes. His hands were clasped in front of him, fidgeting slightly. After a moment he nodded and followed Tony into his part of the workshop.

Loki's feet left trails of ice, and the room temperature sunk by several degrees. He made sure not to touch anything, didn't come to close, and left again after just twenty minutes.

Tony didn't comment on any of that.

  
  


❄

  
  


“This is really annoying,” Loki said, a few weeks later. He was sitting on a chair in the workshop, legs drawn up, and frowned at the book in his hand.

Tony glanced up, then made a face. “Again?”

Loki didn't reply. His book was completely frozen over, the spine cracking when he forcefully closed it. It disappeared from his hands, then, and landed on Tony's table a second later. Tony left it be. They just had to wait for the ice to melt, then Loki could dry the pages.

Loki's chair was covered in ice, too, as was the floor beneath it. And that was only getting worse right now, the ice spreading farther.

“You want to change back?” Tony asked.

“I am meant to learn to control it, am I not?” Loki countered, teeth clenched.

“Yup,” Tony said, popping the _p._ He turned back to his project. “And that would still be easier if you knew how it worked.”

Loki glared at him. “No.”

“I'm right, and you know it.”

“I told you very early on that I will _not_ serve as your lab rat,” Loki shot back.

Tony rolled his eyes. “Yep. I'm still touched that you trust me so much.”

There was a pause. “This has nothing to do with trust,” Loki said then, tone softer now. “Or lack of it.”

“No? Why do you keep bringing up the lab rat thing, then?”

Loki stayed quiet.

“Thought so,” Tony muttered.

They'd been having this argument for days now. Loki insisted that his ice powers were just another type of magic - Jotun magic - and that he could control it just like he could control _his_ magic. That was all very well in theory, but Loki had been trying to control it for weeks, without success. So Tony had suggested to scan Loki's not actually new but still _new_ powers, and see how they differed from his normal magic. Loki was not exactly keen on having his Jotun magic scanned, though. Which was ridiculous - Tony had scanned his normal magic all the way in the beginning, when Loki had joined the team. Fine, Loki hadn't really had a choice back then, but they were _friends_ now, weren't they? Tony didn't really get what the problem was.

“Anthony.”

Tony looked up to see Loki standing next to his desk - still in safe distance, but closer than he would have dared the first times he'd spent time with Tony in his Jotun form. Tony wouldn't have minded if he'd come even closer, not minding Loki radiated cold at the moment. It had taken some time getting used to the blue skin and especially the red eyes, but by now Tony really didn't mind them. The markings on Loki's skin were fascinating, actually, and Tony's fingers always itched with the urge to trace those lines.

“I do trust you,” Loki said, voice quiet and earnest - a bit of reluctance in his eyes, though; he wasn't entirely comfortable admitting this. “But you know how little control I have. I do not want to hurt you, or,” he glanced around, “dismantle your workshop.”

Tony stared at him for a moment. He'd known, of course. That Loki trusted him. Because if he didn't, Loki wouldn't be here at all, and certainly not without his glamour. If he didn't trust him, he wouldn't sleep in Tony's presence or get drunk with him. But it was an unspoken thing between them, trust; something they were aware of but didn't acknowledge. Acknowledging it meant vulnerability, and they both didn't do well with that. But Tony _had_ known. It hadn't really been fair to accuse Loki of not trusting him, but what else was he supposed to do? Getting Loki to speak the truth was an ordeal sometimes.

“You won't dismantle anything,” Tony said eventually, careful. “Not the workshop, and not me. You don't even need to _do_ anything.” He looked back at Loki's chair that was still frozen over. “You're constantly freezing things, anyway.”

“Scanning it will be entirely pointless,” Loki said.

“You don't know that.”

The god continued to glower.

“Come on, it's worth a try, isn't it? And it's not like you have any better ideas.”

Loki gave him an unsatisfied look that told Tony that they both knew he was right. Naturally, it made him grin, which just resulted in Loki intensifying his glare.

“We'll do something fun after,” Tony suggested.

Loki's expression quickly turned into something thoughtful and intrigued. His brow furrowed in concentration and then the blue was already fading again, leaving behind white skin and sparkling green eyes. He approached Tony, then, and put his hands carefully on Tony’s waist - not pulling him close yet, but showing that he wanted to, very much. Tony could feel a still cool thumb stroking his hip bone through his thin shirt.

“What do you have in mind?” Loki asked, voice already low.

Tony shrugged. “Dunno. A rock concert?”

Loki looked like someone would look if you presented them with a giant bowl of their favourite ice cream, complete with cream and waffles and a cherry on top, only to take it away from them again after they’d gotten a first taste. He wanted to let go of Tony, but the inventor was already laughing and grasping Loki’s shirt, keeping him in place.

“I’m joking, Lo. Stop making that face.”

“Well,” Loki said, tone unusually prim, “I would not hold you back if you preferred a concert over -”

“Shut up,” Tony cut him off, hand sliding up until it came to rest on the back of Loki’s neck. “I wouldn’t prefer that. I don’t. And you know it.”

Loki’s eyes said that he didn’t, or that he at least wasn’t entirely sure. But before Tony could say anything else, Loki pushed him up against the desk and kissed him, hands already slipping under Tony’s shirt. Soon enough Tony had forgotten all about rock concert, even about his (their) plan to scan Loki’s magic; none of that mattered anymore. There were just Loki’s clever fingers and his even cleverer tongue, and Tony realized - the thought crashing down on him like one of those damned pianos in cartoons - that he really wouldn’t prefer anything else over this. Nothing. Not ever again.

  
  


❄

  
  


That night, Tony woke up with a start, covered in sweat and struggling for air. Shock turned into sour frustration within seconds, and he’d already flung his feet out of bed when a cool hand touched his arm.

“Stay,” Loki said, his voice muffled and soft.

“Can’t,” Tony replied, but he’d stilled and now sat on the edge of the bed, all too aware of Loki’s cold fingers on his skin. Loki always stayed the night when they had landed in bed - not because that _meant_ anything, only because he was too comfortable to get up. Tony didn't often fall asleep while Loki was still there, but he’d been more exhausted than usual today, and somehow it had just happened.

“No nonsense in my presence,” Loki reminded him. There was a gentle undertone just beneath a crumbling layer of nonchalance.

Tony had to close his eyes. “Loki -”

“Shh.” Loki tugged at his arm. “Come here.”

Tony let himself be pulled back until he was lying down again, on his back. Loki loosely wrapped his arm around Tony’s middle and buried his face against the human’s neck. Tony’s heartbeat sped up, but not because of the nightmare any longer.

“Sleep,” Loki said. “Nothing will happen to you.”

And, somehow, Tony slept.

(He noticed only later that Loki could have reminded him of their deal, but hadn’t.)

  
  


❄

  
  


As it turned out, Loki was _not_ constantly freezing things.

He had been in his Jotun form for the better part of the last five hours, and they had spent them in the workshop, doing their own things or talking. It had been normal enough that Tony had entirely forgotten about the fact that Loki was constantly being scanned, but judging by the results Loki hadn’t been that lucky. Not the whole time, at least.

“Huh,” Tony said, staring at the screen where the feed of their little experiment was still playing. “So. This is good, right?”

Loki, who was still in his Jotun skin, was looking over Tony’s shoulder, his brows drawn together. “I don’t understand,” he said, reluctant. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

“Of course it does. Look, here - J, rewind to where Loki was reading - yes, thanks.” Tony pointed at the book on the screen. “See, it’s freezing here, like always.”

“Yes,” Loki drawled, impatient, “because my hands are very cold. Of course it’s freezing.”

Tony gave him a look, but continued. “Your armchair, too, and the floor beneath it. It spreads all the way to your desk,” he said, following the ice with his fingers. “And you haven’t turned a page in twenty minutes.”

“So?”

“Forward to when we start talking,” Tony said, and JARVIS obeyed. “Here. You come over to my desk so we don’t have to shout at each other, right? Look at your feet, they leave icy footprints. And then we talk, you nag at my runes -”

“I helped you.”

“You were nagging. Point is, here, do you see that?” Tony tapped on the screen. “The ice is melting. And your feet aren’t freezing the floor anymore, and the table you sit on is alright, too. And -” Tony looked at the other screen, where the data JARVIS had collected was displayed. “Look at this, your body temperature. And that of the room. They’re lower while you’re reading, much lower. But then you relax, and the temperature rises and, ta-da, the ice disappears.”

Tony turned his head to look at Loki, who had listened with attentive eyes and clenched teeth. He didn’t say anything, just stared at the screens, and after a moment Tony sighed.

“It’s not _magic_,” he said. “Not in the same way like your, er, green one, at least - I think it’s your body.”

Loki glanced at him. “Of course it’s my body,” he said curtly. “What do you think magic _is_? My ‘green’ magic is linked to my body, too.”

“Yes, sure, but this is more like - like poison or something. Some animals spray toxic stuff at things that try to eat them, right? This is similar, I think. A defense mechanism, a reflex.”

“Are you comparing me to an Ólyoskur?”

“I have no idea what that is. What were you thinking about when you were ‘reading’?”

Loki frowned at him. “There is no reason to make it sound like that. I was actually reading.”

“No, you were brooding.” Tony knew how Loki looked like when he was actually reading, thank you very much. He'd spent far too many hours secretly watching him turning the pages, chewing on his lower lip, wayward strands of raven hair constantly falling into his eyes - Tony cleared his throat and hurried to continue, “Thinking about the scans, I’m sure, and how much you hate it when you can’t control things. And -”

“Yes, I understand, thank you,” Loki snapped. “You truly are a genius.”

Tony raised a brow, and after a moment Loki huffed and looked away, only for a second. A few moments passed, then he seemed calmer again.

“I’m just saying that it makes sense,” Tony said, softer now. “You hate being in your Jotun form. You feel vulnerable and threatened, the whole time. Remember when you knocked me out? Or when you broke the door? The ice, that’s just how your body reacts to shitty situations. It lashes out. But when you relax -”

“Then there is no reason to freeze the room,” Loki said, sighing. “Yes. So it seems. This does not change anything, though. It merely means that it is a sort of magic I can’t control - or worse, that it is not magic at all, but merely something physical.” He frowned, and after a moment murmured, “I could swear it _is_ magic. It feels like it sometimes.”

Tony hummed and leaned back in his chair, fiddling around with a pencil that had been lying around on his desk. “Maybe it’s both?” He asked after a while. “Or neither. Something - something _new, _maybe.”

“We don’t know enough about the Jötnar to be sure,” Loki said, thoughtful. ”Although… They do use it as weapons. So there _has_ to be a way to control it.”

“They use the ice as weapons?”

Loki nodded, still distracted. “I wish we could access the royal library,” he said. “I am sure there would be a helpful book somewhere.”

Tony was ridiculously pleased that Loki had used _we_, not _I. “_Yeah,” he agreed.”But at least we know now that you don’t _have_ to be constantly freezing things. That’s _good_, Loki. It means that your Jotun form is not as deadly as you always say.”

“No,” Loki said coolly. “It just means that it is uncontrollable, and _animalistic_. That fits everything I have ever read about the Jötnar, of course.” He scoffed and turned away from the screens, walking a few steps into the direction of his corner of the workshop. “If you are right, if it is nothing more than a defense mechanism, a _reflex_, I will never be able to -”

“You’re doing it again.” Tony, leaning over the back of his chair, pointed at the ground beneath Loki’s feet.

“I am _aware_,” Loki hissed, glaring at the ground in a way that made Tony fear the god might kick something any passing second.

“You remember what we said, right? That ground rule we agreed on?”

Loki froze (pun _maybe_ intended). “You mean that we won’t -”

“Yeah.”

“- hurt each other?”

“Yes, that one.” Tony rested his chin on his arm. “There’s no reason to freeze my floor. You’re safe here.”

Loki didn’t look at him, but he did take a long and deep breath, shoulders a little hunched. After a few minutes, Tony believed that the temperature in the room was rising slightly again. Tony stayed quiet, watching as the ice started to melt.

“You promised we would do something fun after this,” Loki said eventually, voice uncharacteristically faint.

Tony raised a brow. “We’ve had a lot of fun last night.”

“I’d like a drink.”

Who was Tony to say no to that?

  
  


❄

  
  


“I should pick up meditating again,” Loki said later, when they had made themselves comfortable on the sofa in the penthouse. Loki was lying with his head in Tony’s lap, legs dangling over the armrest, underarm covering his eyes. He seemed incredibly tired, but that might just be because he’d drunk three filled to the brim glasses of that Asgardian drink of his, and that usually made him drowsy.

“You think that’ll help?” Tony asked. He’d started playing with Loki’s hair a while ago. He liked playing with Loki’s hair, and he liked even more that Loki was letting him. And enjoying it too, maybe. Hopefully.

Loki hummed. “It could, yes. It seems to be a matter of,” he gestured around vaguely, “_emotions_ too, after all.” He sighed. “I used to be good at that.”

“At what?”

“Keeping -”, he was interrupted by a yawn, “keeping things inside. They can be very deterring while handling magic.” Loki took his arm off his eyes and ran his hand over his chest instead. Little green and golden sparks jumped off his fingers. “It lashes out more often now.”

“Doesn’t sound healthy,” Tony said flatly.

“Mhhm.” Loki closed his eyes.

“Hey.” Tony gently shook the god’s shoulders. “Don’t sleep.”

Loki sighed and opened his eyes again. He turned his head toward the TV. “Would you like to watch something?”

“No. You should change now.”

Loki’s eyes snapped back to him at once, brows shooting up. He stared at Tony for a while, then asked, “Why?”

“Why not?”

“I can’t.”

“You’re not gonna hurt me as long as you stay calm.”

“No, I mean -” Loki made a frustrated sound. “I _cannot_. I need the freezer -”

“Lo, you can’t always use the freezer to change,” Tony interrupted. “S’not the point of this.”

“Oh? And what _is_ the point?”

“That you learn to be fine with it,” Tony said, because that _was_ the point, right? He was very sure that it was. “C’mon, change.”

Loki rolled his eyes, then closed them. “I can’t,” he repeated.

“You don’t know how?”

“Of course I do. But I do not want to. And not wanting it makes changing rather difficult. My magic knows.”

Tony frowned as he tried to make sense of that. Magic was still some kind of a mystery for him, even now that he knew Loki so well. The mage had said several times that he needed the cold to force him to change, but Tony still wasn't entirely sure about the _why._

“The Jötnar could definitely control it. I remember.”

Tony blinked and looked at Loki, narrowing his eyes. He believed that Loki was trying to deflect, but after a moment Tony decided to play along. “You do?”

“Yes. They formed spears and swords, even shields… Daggers, too.”

“Hm.” Tony stared into space for a while, thinking. He was tired, too. Maybe also a bit drunk. “Sucks that we can’t just ask another Jotun for help.”

Loki snorted. He turned onto his side, head still resting on Tony’s thigh, and buried his nose against Tony’s hipbone. “They were not extraordinarily helpful, anyway,” he murmured.

“How do you know?”

“I read it.”

Tony let his head drop back against the sofa. “Yeah, but how d’you know that’s _true?_”

But Loki had already fallen asleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Like he had said, Loki picked up meditating. He did it in the workshop, mostly, while Tony was working, or sometimes in his own rooms - although he didn't retreat to them very often anymore. Loki had changed the small cot in the workshop to something broader and longer and much more comfortable, and then he just laid down there and, well, did whatever he did while meditating. Tony wasn't entirely sure if his and Loki's understanding of the word were the same. Loki said that his meditating served to anchor his magic anew, to strengthen his bond with it or something. It all sounded a bit nebulous and occult in Tony's ears, but he believed that Loki knew what he was doing. Most of the time.

Besides, it was interesting. Tony watched Loki out of the corner of his eye, sometimes (all the time), and it was… yes. Interesting. Loki looked like he was sleeping, only that his eyes opened now and then and his magic was vibrant in the air around him, green and golden sparks dancing over Loki's chest and arms like dust particles in sunlight.

It was weird. And pretty. And Tony really wanted to scan it all, but he'd promised not to, so all he did was watching. That was nice, too.

Tony wasn't sure if it was thanks to the meditation sessions, but Loki seemed to get at least a little better at keeping the ice in check. He didn't freeze things as often and Tony didn't need to walk around the workshop in thick sweaters anymore, which was nice. But Loki still couldn't _control_ the ice - he couldn't form icicles by sheer force of will or anything, and he was as far away from being able to built a icy castle like in _Frozen_ as a Jotun could possibly be. (They had watched that movie. Tony had tried to call Loki Elsa exactly once, but that had not ended well.) He also still couldn't change on command, not without the freezer.

That was the first thing to change.

It happened while he was meditating, and Tony sat at his desk and stared at Loki for solid twenty minutes before deciding that pulling Loki out of his daze wasn't a good idea. Because maybe meditating was like sleepwalking? Tony didn't know, but he didn't want to take the risk. So he just continued staring.

It had started with Loki's fingertips, but by now the blue had reached his entire body, as far as Tony could see. Those lighter blue, slightly raised lines came into sight, and as always when he saw them Tony really, really wanted to touch them. Loki's Jotun form was gorgeous in a way Tony couldn't possibly put into words - it was weird and a little off-putting, yes, especially the red eyes, but Tony didn't mind. It was _Loki_, after all.

He watched, and waited.

Loki woke up - or stopped to meditate, whatever - about an hour later, blinking drowsily and slowly stretching his probably cramped limbs.

“Okay,” Tony said, causing Loki to look at him. “Okay, before you freak out -”

But Loki had already raised a hand to brush his hair out of his face, and at the first glimpse of azure skin he flinched so hard that he nearly fell off the cot.

Tony bit his lip. Laughing definitely wasn't the right reaction at the moment.

“Hey,” he said instead. “You did it.”

Loki, now sitting properly on the makeshift bed again, stared at his hands. “I did,” he breathed. “When?”

“Uh,” Tony glanced at one of the screens on his desk, “fifty-six minutes ago. Careful, the cot's freezing.”

A few minutes later, the ice started to melt. Loki still looked like he won a prize that he didn't actually want.

“Did you mean to do it?” Tony asked, careful.

Loki hesitated. “I thought about it,” he replied eventual, frowning slightly. “It… makes sense, of course. That it works like this.”

“It does?”

Loki didn't answer, and after a moment he changed back into his Aesir skin. Tony sighed and turned back to his work.

By now, he believed that it was Loki's own mind that kept him from changing at will - he knew how, he _could_, but it was as he had said, he didn't really _want to._ And if Tony had learned one thing about magic, then it was that you had to want what you were trying to achieve. He'd watched Loki try a few times - Loki could turn his fingertips, sometimes even a whole hand, but then he just sat there staring at the skin like he wanted to rip it off himself. He always washed his hands after.

Tony's throat had gotten tight, every time he'd been there and watched. He had never said anything, knowing that it was pointless. He didn't know _anything_ about the Jötnar except for what Loki had told him, and although he believed that they couldn't be as bad as Loki had been taught they were, Loki would hardly believe that even if Tony told him. And what did it matter that _Tony_ didn't mind? Loki wasn't doing this for him, wasn't looking for Tony's acceptance. He needed to find his own.

Tony had no idea how to achieve that, but maybe Loki learning to change when he wanted really was a good start. And the sooner he connected changing color to something better than being trapped into an icy cell the better.

Loki didn’t use the freezer to change anymore, he meditated. It took him less time with every try, and after a few weeks he just needed a few minutes. In the beginning he often changed back immediately after, maybe because of shock - it looked like shock, at least, eyes wide and hands shaking. But eventually he learned to stay as he was, a little longer each time. And that together with him being able to _not_ freeze his entire surroundings, he wasn’t restricted to the workshop any longer.

Tony half expected him to put an end to whatever it was they had, but Loki never did. Tony didn’t know if he changed when he was alone, too, but he still came to the workshop to meditate, sometimes even to the penthouse. He still came to movie nights, too. Now and then even to board game evenings, at which he proceeded to effortlessly beat every single one of them. He was even better than Natasha. They all knew that he cheated, but of course they could never prove it.

All in all, it was a nice time. Christmas came and went - the team had a small, quiet party that Loki didn’t attend, and then there was a battle later in the evening. Loki did attend that, and when their jobs were done he dragged Tony to bed. Then there was New Year’s Day, and winter melted into spring; Loki had been in the tower for a little more than two years now. Tony couldn’t imagine living here without him anymore.

He was hopeless, he knew. Completely fucking hopeless. But Loki smiled at him so often now, even when he was in his Jotun form, and he was just so _brilliant. _He was also an asshole with legendary mood swings, and they clashed and fought more often than they didn’t, but who cared? Tony certainly didn’t.

They were still just friends, though. That was clear. Everything else wouldn’t work, anyway.

❄

In early summer, Loki came to the workshop and seemed so - not excited, at least not in an entirely good way, but so _abuzz_ that Tony stopped working at once, staring at his friend.

“What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

“No,” Loki said, then, “Well, yes. May I?”

He was already shoving the stuff on Tony’s worktable aside, though, so Tony raised his brows and said flatly, “Yeah, sure, go ahead.”

Loki sat down on the table, legs long enough that his feet were still on the floor, and, after some time of concentration, changed. Tony’s brows wandered even higher as he watched the blue crawl over the bits of Loki’s skin he could see.

“That was really fast,” he said, surprised. “You -”

“Shh.”

Loki lifted his hands, brows drawn together in concentration, and after another minute ice formed on his fingers, wandering and expanding until there was a clear and glistening bridge connecting his fingertips. Tony's eyes widened, and then even more when he saw that the ice was still changing, still forming, and then -

“Oh,” Tony said, brightly. “You - you figured it out!”

“I did.” Loki’s tone was smug, and it fucking deserved to be. He’d been practicing this for _weeks._ Months, really - since they had scanned him that one day, since he’d remembered that Jötnar could form ice at will. But he’d never managed, not really.

And now there it was, a tiny, delicate dagger that looked like it would break any passing second. It was pretty, but -

“Can you _use_ that?”

Loki made a _bitch, please_ face and rammed the knife into the table. Tony gaped and leaned down to look at the underside of the table; he could see the tip of the dagger.

“The fuck, how - how's that possible? It's _ice._”

“It isn't _Midgardian_ ice,” Loki told him. “This is much more resilient.”

“Looks like it. What else can you do?”

“Nothing much.” Loki's lips twitched into something that might have been a smile. “Not yet.”

“That's the spirit,” Tony said, grinning. He almost reached out to touch Loki - this was an _eureka_ moment, okay, it called for a hug - but stopped himself; Loki didn't want to be touched when he wasn't wearing his glamour.

Loki pulled the dagger out of the table again and ran his hand over the hole it had left, making it disappear. It took him a few minutes, but then he managed to transform the dagger back into ice that then simply vanished, looking as if it retreated back into his fingertips. Tony watched, and thought that it was really fucking sad that Loki couldn't _see_ how marvelous this was. And then he laughed, because as as the same time as Loki took care of the dagger, ice appeared somewhere else.

Loki blinked and followed Tony's gaze, sighing when he spotted the icicles that had formed on his shoulders. “This keeps happening,” he complained, touching his shoulders as if to dust them off.

The ice cracked, then melted.

❄

It got warmer again. Not as warm as last year, but still too warm for Loki, who began spending more time in the freezer again - not to change, this time, but because he couldn't stand the heat. So, whenever he had left the tower, he disappeared into the freezer for some time to cool down. He didn't leave the tower often, thankfully, mostly just for missions. Now and then Tony dragged him out, but only in the evenings, for dinner or drinks.

Before it had gotten so unbearably hot last summer, Tony hadn't been able to leave because Natasha and Clint had been on a mission, but this year the other Avengers were all in the tower, so they could take care of any crazy people who decided to harass New York in Tony's absence. Which was why Tony wanted to get out for a while - just not alone.

“I thought about getting out of here for a while,” he said one evening, while they were sitting in the penthouse and eating the pizza they had ordered. “You know, just - take a break?”

Loki glanced at him. There was an open book hovering in the air next to him as he ate, the pages turning apparently on their own accord. “Oh? To Malibu?”

“Yeah.”

Loki nodded, looking at his book with a slight frown. “When will you be back?”

Right.

“No, I. I thought. Look, I thought we could go together?”

Immediately, Loki's eyes snapped back to him. The frown was gone, replaced by such obvious surprise that Tony squirmed a bit under the mage's stare.

“Together?” Loki asked hesitantly, closely watching Tony's face.

“Yeah? I mean, you've barely seen anything of Earth. Maybe a change would be - ”

“You want me to come with you?”

Tony blinked. A salami slice was slowly sliding off his pizza. “Yeah? Only if you -”

“Why?”

Tony absently gathered up the salami. “What do you mean, why? Why do I want you to come with me?”

“Yes.”

Because the thought of spending a few weeks without Loki was unbearable. Because the thought of Loki not even missing him while he was away was even worse.

“Why not?” Tony replied. “You don't have to, of course. I just thought it could be nice.” After a pause he added, “The house is as safe as can be and there's nothing else around. You could practice your Elsa powers in peace.”

“I told you not to call them that.”

“Jack Frost powers?”

“No.”

“You're no fun.”

Loki just rolled his eyes, and then he said yes.

  


❄

  


Bringing a Jotun to California in July?

Yeah, not exactly one of Tony's best ideas.

Loki insisted that he was fine, but honestly he looked like he was about to have another heatstroke. Tony felt horrible and had offered to leave again about twenty-three times, but Loki kept declining. He'd come up with some kind of spell that cooled him down a little, but the steady use of magic wore him out after some time. They spent most of the time inside or in the pool, doing things they technically could be doing in New York just as well as here. But still, it was nice _not_ being in New York for a while. They were actually alone here, and that was nice. It would have been even nicer if Loki would have been able to actually enjoy it.

Thankfully, they found a solution for that after a week. Or, well, maybe not a _complete _solution, but at least a way to make it better.

They were sitting at the pool, legs dangling in the water. Tony was sipping one of the cocktails they had made earlier. It wasn't the tastiest drink he'd ever had, but at least it was cold. His skin felt sticky because of the sunscreen Loki had <strike>forced</strike> gently persuaded him to put on, even though _Loki_ was the one who was sunburned all over by now.

“I think I have an idea,” Loki said, licking on what little was left of his popsicle. (He still liked popsicles. Mostly because they were a good way to drive Tony mad, Tony was sure.)

“Hm?” Tony replied, eyeing the popsicle stick a little jealously.

“I have an idea,” Loki repeated, putting the stick aside. “Take your legs out of the water, please.”

Tony raised his brows, but complied, pulling his legs up. Loki slid into the pool and closed his eyes, a look of concentration on his face that Tony was familiar with by now.

“Er,” he said. “I'm not sure if changing makes it -”

“Shh.”

“I mean it. I've no idea what to do if -”

“_Shh._”

Tony rolled his eyes and closed his lips around the straw again to take another sip. Fine, then. If Loki wanted to challenge the laws of physics _and_ biology, Tony certainly wouldn't stop him.

The blue washed over Loki within seconds. He winced, but before Tony could tell him that hot sun and Loki's skin was an even worse combination without the protection of the glamour, Loki had already disappeared beneath the surface.

Tony leaned forward until he could see Loki sitting on the ground of the pool, in a position Tony by now linked to meditation. It didn't take long, only one or two minutes, and then the pool -

Well. The entire thing was freezing, apparently. Soon the layer of ice on the surface was thick enough that Tony couldn't even see Loki properly anymore.

“Er,” Tony said again, and then his glass exploded.

He reacted appropriately; with a long tirade of courses and flailing hands. Fuck, he should have known better than to hold a glass filled with liquid while Loki played around with his powers only a few feet away. _Physics._ Damn physics.

Alarmed because of Tony’s curses, Loki surfaced again, the ice on the water melting where he wanted it to. He brushed his wet hair out of his face and stared at Tony, eyes widening in concern.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Tony told him through clenched teeth, but Loki had already come over to him, bracing himself on the edge of the pool.

He didn’t say anything, but the look in his eyes was apology enough. He made a quick gesture and vanished the shards of glass and the remains of the frozen cocktail. Then he took Tony’s hands in his and healed the few cuts the exploding glass had left. The burning pain disappeared quickly enough.

Tony held very, very still. He couldn’t quite keep from grinning, even though Loki’s hands were awfully cold. It didn’t take long until Loki noticed that grin, red eyes flickering up to Tony’s and narrowing.

“What?”

Tony allowed his grin to widen. “I don’t know if you realized,” he said calmly, “but you’re touching me.”

Loki flinched back at once, the ice in the pool cracking as he stumbled back. The look of panic on his face was so intense that Tony’s grin died out. He tried to come after Loki and reach out for him, but Loki snapped at him to stay out of the water. Tony winced but obeyed, and after a few seconds Loki came back to the edge, a few feet away from Tony this time. He came out of the water himself, landing on all fours next to the pool, eyes pinched shut in concentration. He changed back.

Only when the blue was all gone again, Tony slid over to Loki. He tried to touch him, but the god flinched back, so Tony withdrew his hands again and kept them in his lap.

“Loki, it’s _okay_,” he said, quiet and urgent. “I didn’t mind, you can -”

But Loki shook his head, sitting abruptly back on his heels, wringing his hands. “No, I should not have - _forced_ you to -”

“Yeah, no,” Tony cut him off. “Don’t even start with that, it’s - hell, there wasn’t even any _forcing_ involved, it was _fine._ They’re your hands, Loki, I’m not scared of them. I like them. Okay? And thanks for healing mine.”

Loki frowned in suspicion, apparently unsure whether Tony could be believed or not. Tony had expected nothing else, so he just sighed and gestured back at the pool.

“Go on, get back in there and cool down a bit more. I’ll go and make us something to eat.”

“Would you like me to help?”

“No, don’t worry about it.”

“Don’t set the kitchen on fire.”

“That was _one time_!”

  


❄

  


From there on, Loki cooled down the water in the pool every once in a while and went for a swim in it. Sometimes he just sat around on the ground, meditating or maybe just thinking about his next pranks - Tony couldn’t be sure -, but more often he placed a book on the edge of the pool, protected against the water by a spell, and read. He kept looking at Tony like he was a puzzle Loki needed to solve, but Tony let him do the the solving on its own. He’d get it soon enough.

Tony spent most of his time watching Loki. (Sometimes he felt like he had spent the better part of the last year watching Loki.) The god seemed to be at peace for the first time since it had gotten so warm, and it was a good look at him. Hell, _everything_ would be a good look on him, probably. Loki was gorgeous like that, even when he was red-eyed and blue. In fact, the water reflections playing on that azure skin, dancing over lines Tony _still_ wanted to touch, where the prettiest thing he'd ever seen. The fact that Loki was half naked didn't hurt, either.

When he not so guiltily dragged his eyes back to Loki's face, he wasn't surprised to find the god already watching him. He was surprised to see that _Loki_ was surprised, though. But, well, that didn't cover it, really. Loki wasn't just surprised, it seemed like he was freaking dumbstruck, and bewildered and perplexed and flabbergasted and every other synonym that fitted. He looked like he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

He’d solved the puzzle, probably.

Tony blinked at his friend a few times, waiting for Loki to spit out what the matter was, but naturally Loki stayed silent. After a few long moments, Tony asked, “What's wrong?”

Loki kept staring at him, now with a wary look in his eyes.

“What?” Tony tried again and then made a joke, because what else was he supposed to do? “Did you change my hair to icicles by accident?”

Loki shook his head. “You...,” he said then, very slowly. He swallowed thickly, Adam's apple bobbing. “You _like_ this form.”

“Er. Busted?” Tony ran appreciative eyes over said form again, then shrugged. “Sure do.”

“Why?” Loki asked, quick as a gunshot, the look in his eyes intrigued and calculating in equal measures. His mouth twitched. “Do you think it - what, _exotic_?”

_Oh, _Tony thought, and then, _honey, no, you've got it all wrong._

“I mean, you're as exotic as it's gonna get,” he said with a crooked smile and another shrug. “But that's not it, no. You're gorgeous, Lo, it's just that. And I like looking at pretty things, I told you that long ago.”

Loki didn't say anything. He didn't look like he believed Tony, and of course he didn't. _Gorgeous _and _Jotun _were not words that went together in Loki's vocabulary.

Tony dipped his toes into the water and winced, _fuck_, that was cold. Nope, he wouldn't go for a swim in there anytime soon, definitely not. He stayed sitting on the edge, cross-legged, and held out his hands.

“Come here.”

Loki hesitated, but when Tony didn't give up after a few seconds and remained exactly where he was, looking at Loki expectantly, the mage sighed and came closer. He stopped in front of Tony and crossed his arms, chin lifted in that challenging way that made Tony smile.

“You can touch me, you know,” he said. “Anytime, if you want to.”

Loki glared at him. “I could -”

“You're not going to hurt me. You're pretty good at controlling it by now.”

“But -” He cut himself off, pressing his lips together.

“Uh, no. No buts. You're allowed to. There's no reason why you shouldn't be.” Tony wiggled his fingers. “C'mon, don't leave me hanging. High five, please.”

Loki was still frowning, but after a long moment he raised his hand. He didn’t give Tony a high five, sadly, but he did touch his fingertips to Tony’s own - gentle and tentative, as if he expected him to recoil. His eyes flickered between their hands and Tony’s face, his frown slowly clearing.

“It’s fine,” Tony said again. “Really.” It came out softer than he’d planned.

Loki’s face took on a look of determination, a hint of poorly hidden hunger clinging to its edges. Still very carefully, Loki entwined their fingers and seemed completely mesmerized by the result, as if he’d never held hands with somebody before. Which, Tony supposed, he hadn’t. Theirs wasn’t exactly a hand-holding-and-cheek-kisses kind of relationship. (Sadly.)

“See? That’s not so bad, is it?”

Loki swallowed thickly, still staring at their hands. “Not too cold?” he asked, voice a little rough.

“No,” Tony said. Loki’s hand was cold, yes, but not _too_ cold; he’d live. “'Course not.”

After a while, Loki sat on the edge of the pool next to Tony. They were still holding hands, and Loki carefully turned Tony’s in his own, stroking over the back of it, feeling the knuckles, tracing the lines and scars in Tony’s palm with his fingertips. Tony let him and, even though he wanted to say something to fill the silence, he couldn’t; his throat was just a little too tight to speak. Maybe it was better that way, because _what_ he wanted to say was ridiculous and soppy and if he told him, Loki would probably laugh at him.

_I__ don't care about what skin you're wearing - I__ like _you. _That's it, nothing else; I like _you.

No, he definitely couldn’t say that. He didn’t even _really_ want to, so he didn't. But still, the words kept circulating in his head, never quite disappearing, always returning right back to the tip of his tongue, no matter how often he swallowed them down. He tried to ignore them, but Loki made that rather hard.

It turned out that, as soon as Loki had figured out that touching Tony while he was blue was an option he had, he was insatiable. The better part of the rest of their vacation was spent, well, _touching_. Or being touched, in Tony’s case. Not that it bothered him, mind you. No, he was definitely enjoying himself, even though it made swallowing down those words even harder. Also there was something horribly heartbreaking about the whole thing.

Loki seemed to have something like a soft spot for Tony’s hands. He’d taken to holding one of them when they were watching a movie or just hanging around, either really just _holding _it or massaging tiny circles into the palms, which made Tony wonder if and since when his hands were erogenous zones.

(He asked about it, just once. Why Loki seemed to like his hands so much. Tony couldn't understand – apart from his chest, his hands were just about the ugliest part of his body, made rough and calloused from his work, covered in scars because they were injured every other week. The almost reverent look in Loki's eyes just didn't add up.

“I like them,” Loki had said, and nothing else.)

After a few days, Loki moved on to Tony’s arms, some sort of wicked glee sneaking into his eyes when he found out that the undersides were ticklish. Then it was Tony’s collarbones, his neck, his hair - Loki touched him as if he wanted to catalog every inch of Tony’s body, every patch of skin and every muscle. And Tony let him, because why the fuck not? It was _nice._ He couldn’t remember if he’d ever been the center of such absolute and thoroughly _gentle_ attention. There was something unassuming about the way Loki touched him that Tony liked. Normally, people wanted something from him when they touched him this much - normally, _Loki_ wanted something from him when they touched this much, so it was a nice change. Sure, this was probably not much more than some kind of experiment, another case of _I’ve never done this before but I’d like to and you let me, please let me_, but Tony didn’t mind. Loki seemed happy, and that made it easy for Tony to be happy, too.

He’d be happier if he could have touched Loki in return, of course, but the one time he tried that went awfully wrong. Loki didn’t shift back into his Jotun skin for days after. So Tony resigned and kept his hands to himself, head dropping against the backrest of the sofa as he wondered how the fuck he’d gotten himself into this situation. He wanted it so much that it hurt, and he also wanted to get out of it so much that it hurt even more. Wonderful, really.

He still wasn’t able to stop, though. Besides, Loki needed him, didn't he? Loki _wanted_ him. In some way, at least. Tony couldn’t give that up.

  


❄

  


A handful of weeks after they had returned to the tower, they had breakfast together. It wasn’t the first time by far - Loki had taken to making Tony eat in the mornings _and_ evenings. He'd also, months ago, gotten rid of most of the alcohol in the penthouse, leaving behind just enough give it up safely. And every time Tony worked for longer than two days and ended up passed out somewhere, Loki was there to put him to bed. It had turned out that Loki was a good story teller, and often Tony fell asleep listening to him. Loki never once complained, but of course he didn't. He just made sure that Tony fulfilled his part of their ridiculous deal, after all.

This morning,Tony wasn’t particularly hungry. He almost never was, but that was hardly his fault. He had so much work to do, and he’d slept badly last night - you couldn’t expect him to wake up after a nightmare and then happily make himself scrambled eggs, right? Right. And he’d barely lost any weight, so it was fine. It was all good.

“Not a good day?” Loki asked softly, looking at Tony over the edge of his cup.

Okay, fine. Maybe it wasn’t _all_ good.

Tony glanced at Loki, then turned back to his goddamn scrambled eggs and shoved them around on his plate. He’d dreamed of the wormhole again. Loki had called it the _Void_, when he’d explained how the whole Yggdrasil business worked. He had said it with that pointed casualness, as if he’d had to force his voice to stay even.

“I’m fine,” Tony said. He half expected Loki to make a comment about how lying to the God of Lies rarely ended well, but miraculously, the God of Lies stayed silent. At least for a while.

“We could spar,” Loki suggested eventually, voice light but firm.

Tony made a face. Whenever they sparred, he hurt in the most ridiculous places, for days after. And not in the fun way. “Eh, no, thanks. I’ll just -”

“Bury yourself in your workshop and not talk to me for five days?”

Tony snorted a laugh. “You’ll live. It’s not like you’ll miss me.”

He stood up and brought his mug and plate to the sink. His hands trembled a little; he clenched and unclenched and clenched them again, took a deep breath or five, trying to get his thoughts to calm the fuck down.

“Why did you say that?”

“Hm?” Tony glanced over his shoulder to see that Loki had turned on his chair, one arm on the backrest, looking at Tony with an odd expression on his face. It was blank, but barely so - as if Loki had thought up a mask, but had failed to slide into it all the way.

“Why,” Loki repeated very slowly, “did you say that?”

“What? Why did I say what?”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

Tony cradled his mug in his still not entirely still hands. It was empty, but if he drank more coffee, he’d probably explode. “Just forget it.”

“No,” Loki said at once. “No. Have I ever given you reason to believe that I don’t?”

“Don’t what?”

“Miss you, you fool. When you are down there, ignoring me - and everyone else, for that matter - for days on end? Do you really _think_ I -”

“It’s just a few days,” Tony snapped, dropping his mug into the sink. “Don’t act like it’s the end of the world. And you don’t get to decide -”

“I am not trying to decide anything,” Loki spoke over him. “And I am not judging you, either. I have never once tried to keep you from working. I would never. But don’t imply that I do not worry, or that I don’t care whether you are down there or here with me.”

Tony, who had already made his way to the door, stopped to stare at his friend. “What is this, huh? You being sentimental in the morning? Or do you want something?”

Loki raised his brows. “Want something,” he repeated. It would have sounded impressed, maybe, if the look in his eyes hadn’t been so angry. “Is that it, then? You fear I am trying to manipulate you?”

“No, I just don’t like being fucking lied to.”

Tony turned again and left the room, heading for the elevators. Loki came after him and asked him to wait, but when Tony snapped something at him, he left him alone.

  


❄

  


“_Sir, Mr. Laufeyson asks if you would like to spar with him.”_

“Yeah, tell him to fuck off.”

“_I most definitely will not.”_

“When did you stop doing what I tell you, huh?”

“_Since you made your wellbeing my first priority. You also made me quite insistent, but I’m sure you know that.”_

“Ah, let me guess. You won’t shut up until I...”

“_Exactly. I could also play a song for you, of course. That did work rather well on Loki.”_

“You’re a menace, J.”

“_Thank you, sir.”_

  


❄

  


When Tony entered the training room, Loki was already there, throwing daggers at moving green holograms that flickered out as soon as a blade hit them. He didn't miss. Not even once.

“Show-off,” Tony muttered, just loud enough to be sure that Loki would hear it.

Loki did. He threw one last knife that had Tony duck down to avoid getting a sudden and unwanted haircut.

“Hey!”

“_Hey_,” Loki echoed, tone mocking.

Ah, right. They'd had a fight, hadn't they? Not the first one, not the worst one, but - but an important one, sort of.

Tony clenched his teeth. “Didn't you say that you'd never keep me from working?”

“You were not working.” Loki's voice was cold in a way it hadn't been in a long time. “You were sulking. I know the difference by now.”

Two long wooden sticks appeared in his hands, summoned from the racks where the whole team kept their training weapons. Loki tossed one of them over to Tony, throwing it much farther than a human would be able to. His own floated in the air for a while as he pulled his hair up into a ponytail.

Tony had caught the stick, but not without making a face. He liked sparring with Loki, usually, especially when Loki didn't use his magic. Not that Loki using his magic wasn't all kinds of mind blowing, but there was something about him fighting without it that never failed to take Tony's breath away. Loki was a bastard, but he was also grace and agility incarnate, and it was a fucking pleasure to watch him. Besides that, his fighting style matched Tony's. With Steve and Thor, it was always just plain old boxing, while Natasha and Clint switched between styles so often that it made Tony dizzy. Sparring with Loki, though? That felt more like dancing, really. And Tony had always liked dancing. Also Loki had reluctantly started training in his Jotun form lately, and that was a sight to behold.

With the sticks, though… He'd be bruised all over when they were done, probably. Loki was always a little too fast for him, even though Tony had already gotten better at dodging his blows.

“Look,” Tony said as a he approached Loki in the middle of the broad room. “I know I fucked up, but -”

“You didn't _fuck up._ You said something thoughtless and hurtful because you believe it to be true, and you are also an idiot.”

Huh. Yeah, Tony couldn't argue against that.

“So what? We beat each other to goo?”

“I'm not sure about you,” Loki said, raising a brow, ”but _I_ know how to dodge.”

And with that he made his first move; a kick that probably would have broken Tony's nose if he hadn't managed to jump out of the way in the last minute. Tony clenched his teeth and held the stick tighter. Fine, then.

In the beginning Loki had often reminded Tony that the sticks weren't there so they could belabor each other with them, but by now Tony knew that himself. It was an odd fighting style - _álfskr_, Loki had said once, before explaining that he'd learned it from a people called the Light Elves a long time ago - but it was _nice_, and really quite like dancing. It was a choreography, really, one they had carried out many times by now; Loki kept adding new steps and moves every once in a while. If Tony had been as fast as Loki and, well, as good at this, they probably wouldn't even touch a single time while sparring. Oh, they were kicks and punches, yes, but they weren't meant to actually hurt each other. They had the sticks to steal each other's balance or support themselves, not to hit each other. Tony still ended up being hit a few times every time, today even more than usual. Maybe it was because he was distracted, or because Loki was angry. It was hard to tell.

After, they were lying on the training mats, both out of breath. Loki wasn't sweating because he never was, the bastard, but he'd been kind enough to summon a towel for Tony. Also bottles of water for the both of them.

“You really are an idiot,” he said.

“Is that why you nearly broke all my bones?”

“None of your bones are broken,” Loki replied flatly.

“Yeah, I said _nearly._”

“Stop whining. You've looked worse.”

Tony only grumbled in response.

“Would you like me to heal you?” Loki asked. It was a sincere offer, even though he didn't like healing other people.

“No, I'll live,” Tony said. “And I'm sorry.”

“Oh?”

Tony turned his head to look at Loki, finding that the god was already looking at him. Tony swallowed. “I shouldn't have said that. It was - not fair?”

Loki stayed silent. The look in his eyes was unreadable, and Tony squirmed a little under it.

“It's just. I don't get it.”

“You don't get what?” Loki's voice was quiet and calm, almost casual. But Tony knew that he was the sole focus of the god's attention, and usually that was the best fucking thing, but right now it just made him uncomfortable.

He looked away again. “Why you'd miss me, when I'm working. Everyone else is always just annoyed because they think I should be doing something else, not because -” He cut himself off, shrugging.

“I enjoy your company,” Loki said. “Very much.”

That was such a simple thing to say. A ridiculous thing to say, really, because of _course_ they enjoyed each other's company - but still. Tony wasn't sure if anybody had ever told him that before.

“But it's always just for a few days,” he said, voice small. “That's like - I don't know, like _hours_ for you. Comparatively.”

“Life here is very boring without you.”

Tony made an indignant sound. “Can you - can you _stop_ that?”

“Stop what?” Loki had the nerves to sound amused.

“Saying things like that.”

“Why? Do you really think I'm lying?”

Tony winced and looked at Loki again, shaking his head. “No, I don't.”

And Loki smiled. As always, Tony's heart did that pathetic thing where it skipped a beat and then sped up a bit, as if Loki smiling that rare and soft smile of his was a fucking revelation. (Maybe it was.)

“Then I shall not stop,” Loki decided and leaned in to nuzzle Tony's cheek. Lips brushed prickly skin, and Loki sighed. “You need a shave.”

“I know,” Tony said, breathless. “I - I'll do that later, when -”

Loki kissed him. Tony reached up to run his hands through Loki's hair - the ponytail had loosened during their sparring - and kissed back, relief making it hard to think. Loki's lips were very soft, the way they moved almost careful, gentle. It reminded Tony of their first kisses, and it felt - It _felt_ -

“What the _actual_ fuck is going on here?!”

They broke apart at once, and Loki was on his feet just a second later. Tony, propping himself up on his elbows, was still busy being confused and primarily annoyed at the voice that had interrupted them. He peered past Loki's legs and saw Clint standing there, face cold and stony, _oozing_ anger. He was holding his bow.

Ah, shit.

“You will miss,” Loki said calmly. “Whether you try to shoot him or me, you _will_ miss, I assure you.”

“I won't shoot either of you right now!” Clint snapped, but he was clutching his bow so tightly that his words weren't really convincing. “I want a fucking explanation! Tony -”

“Yeah, I'm here, I'm - er.” Tony got up on his feet, too, and came to stand next to Loki.

The god looked like he would have preferred it if Tony had stayed behind him. Tony gave him a _no can do_ look, making Loki scowl and conjure up one of the sticks again. Tony rolled his eyes and took it, then turned back to Clint.

“Look, uh. I don't really know what you want us to say. That,” he gestured at the mats behind them, “was very, you know, self-explanatory.”

“You were _kissing._”

“I merely wanted to see what he would do,” Loki said, eyes fixed on Clint. ”It was a prank, nothing more.”

Tony stared at him for a moment, then forcefully hit the back of the god's knees with the stick. Loki was so surprised that he actually faltered, and Tony would have been proud if he hadn't been brimming over with anger.

“What the fuck?! Are you serious? A _prank_? Who's being _thoughtless and hurtful_ now, huh?!”

He tried to hit Loki again, but the mage took hold of the stick just in time. “Would you _stop_ that, I'm just trying to -”

“I don't give a fuck what you're trying! If you're too _ashamed_ to admit that we're - we're - then you can fucking -”

“Ashamed? _Ashamed? _You cannot deal with it whenever I _try_ to tell you, and you dare accuse me of being -”

“I'm accusing you alright! And you've never once tried to tell me anything! You _never_ tell me anything! I have to take guesses _all the fucking time._”

“You truly are a fool, aren’t you? Don't you _understand_ that -”

“CAN YOU BOTH SHUT UP.”

They did.

Clint was still standing there, staring at them out of wide, uncomprehending eyes. His anger seemed mostly gone by now.

“I can't believe it,” he said flatly. “I really, _actually_ can't believe it. What, did you - did you secretly marry or something? You said you were just friends, how -”

“We _are_,” Tony snapped, glaring at the other man. “And don't tell anyone, 'cause _Loki_ here doesn't want anybody to know.”

He tossed the damn stick away and left the training room. Neither Loki nor Clint tried to follow him.

  


❄

  


Naturally, Clint told everyone.

Tony ignored everything and everyone for two whole days, but then the rest of the team literally barged into the penthouse and gave him no other choice but to talk to them. He didn't know how they had managed to circumvent the total lockdown he'd ordered; either JARVIS had helped them or Nat had stuck her nose into programs and systems that weren't any of her business.

Anyway.

They were all sitting here, now, on Tony's sofa. While Clint's anger had returned, Steve looked like he was more confused than anything else. Natasha seemed unbothered by the whole thing, which meant absolutely nothing - she wasn't surprised, probably. Judging by the way Bruce looked at Tony, he wasn't either. Thor was suspiciously quiet.

Loki was nowhere to be seen.

“Come on, Clint,” Natasha said. “You're not actually surprised, are you? It's been obvious.”

“Really?” Steve didn't seem convinced.

Bruce smirked. “Tony's been looking at him like -”

“If you finish that sentence, I'm burning all of your books,” Tony said. He was sitting on the sofa with his arms crossed, doing his best impression of a pouting teenager. It was a very good impression.

“Tony -”

“All of them,” Tony swore, glaring at his friend. ”Even Tesla.”

Bruce sighed, but obliged. “Fine.”

“I don’t see why we are discussing this,” Thor chimed in for the first time.

“We’re not discussing anything,” Tony said.

“We’re discussing this because Tony’s been sleeping with Loki and keeping it from us,” Clint said, his tone not exactly kind. Tony glared at him.

“I’m with Thor, here,” Bruce glanced at Clint, frowning slightly. “Loki hasn’t been an enemy for almost two years now, they’re both adults - it really isn’t any of our business.”

“Thank you,” Tony said, flippant. “Can I go now? I have work to do.”

“We just want to make sure that -,” Steve began, but Tony cut him off.

“What, Steve? That we’re not committing treason? That Loki’s not planning world domination again? Or is this you giving me the concerned _stay away from him, he’s not good for you_ talk? Because if that’s what this is supposed to be, you can fuck right off; you’re doing an awful job.”

“My brother is not planning world domination,” Thor said, then looked at Steve, “And he certainly won’t hurt Tony, if that is what you are worrying about.”

Clint stared at the god, somewhat stunned. “He’s your little brother, shouldn’t you be - I don’t know, freaking out about this?”

Thor blinked in surprise. “Why should I? Yes, Loki is young, but old enough to make these kind of decisions for himself. And I’m sure you agree that he could have made a worse choice.”

“Flattering,” Tony drawled, and was ignored by everyone present.

“So they have your blessing?” Natasha asked. She was having far too much fun, Tony knew it.

“Of course,” Thor said, beaming like the damned personification of a golden retriever that he was. “Mother would be delighted -”

“We are _not_ bringing any mothers into this,” Tony cut him off. “None. Especially not yours. Hell, Loki didn’t even want anyone to _know_, it isn’t - it isn’t like _that_, okay?”

There was a pause.

“So you’re not married,” Clint said then, sounding relieved.

“No, birdbrain, we're not.”

“What is it like, then?” Natasha asked, inclining her head.

“Nothing,” Tony said, groaning. “It’s like _nothing, _because it’s over, I’m reasonably sure. So there’s really nothing you guys have to worry about, and you can all leave me alone now. Okay? Okay. Shoo.”

Another, vaguely pitiful feeling pause.

“Tony -” Steve tried, but Tony didn’t give him the chance.

“I said _shoo_.”

It took a few minutes, but then they all shuffled out of the penthouse. Well, all except Thor, who stayed behind and kept looking at Tony with that naive sort of stubbornness that was, well, _Thor._

“I don’t want a shovel talk,” Tony said, already on his way to the bar. “And I don’t need one.”

“I didn’t bring a shovel,” Thor said, frowning, and Tony had to resist the urge to down a whole bottle of whiskey in one go. Was there even a whole bottle of whiskey left? He tried to ignore Thor instead, but of course Thor simply followed him to the bar. “I won’t keep you from drinking too long, I promise.”

“Thank god,” Tony muttered, finding a bottle with whatever and filling a first glass. He really hadn’t drunken in a while, he realized. Or, well, a glass here and there, but not - anyway. Wasn't important, really.

“I just wanted to say that it isn’t over, surely, “ Thor said, smiling widely. “Loki left the tower, but he will come back. He always does.”

Loki left the tower. _Loki left the tower. Loki left the_ -

Tony felt very sick all of a sudden. He swallowed and pushed his glass away from him, suddenly not in the mood anymore. Or maybe even more in the mood, but too distracted by the sinking feeling in his stomach.

“Oh,” was all he managed to say.

He hadn’t even known. JARVIS hadn’t told him - but of course, Tony hadn't asked. But Loki had left the tower. He wasn’t here anymore. Of course he wasn’t, this had turned into everything he _hadn’t _wanted. Here Thor was, speaking of _blessings_ and _mothers_ and Loki - no, Loki hadn’t wanted that. Didn’t want that.

“He’ll come back,” Thor said again, softer now. “You must know - my brother cares for you, very much.”

“Hmhm,” Tony agreed, hoping that Thor would give up quickly. Tony _knew _that Loki cared for him; he wasn’t stupid. He also knew that Loki didn’t care for him _enough_, though.

Thor didn’t give up quickly. “I mean it,” he said. “Loki _trusts_ you, Tony. That is… a rare gift, you see. Loki doesn't trust easily, he never has. But I know how it looks on him, trust. He used to trust _me._”

“I’m really not in the mood for heart-to-hearts and tragic backstories right now,” Tony said flatly. “Also, trust doesn’t mean - it doesn’t mean that he - you know.”

Thor hummed and sat down on a bar stool. “I know what you mean, yes. Loki did say that you were a bit blind regarding this.”

Tony stared at him. “What. You - Loki talked to _you_ \- about - about _me_?”

“I annoyed him long enough,” Thor said, cheerful. “What is this drink, exactly? Can I try?”

Tony silently poured him a drink.

  


❄

  


Tony spent the next days puzzle solving. He was not quite done with that when they were called to battle, and so he might have been a little inattentive. Which somehow led to him getting a whole car thrown at him and being smashed against the nearest building but, really, it wasn't his _fault._ Loki didn't have any right looking as angry as he did when he showed up to toss the car aside (which, ahem, _hot_) and peel Tony from the wall. Well, at least Tony thought that Loki looked angry. He couldn't see all too well at the moment; his head was spinning a bit.

“Don't look at me like that,” he told Loki as he tore the broken and bent pieces of the suit off Tony's body.

“I wish I wouldn't be looking at you at _all_,” Loki snapped. He was in a good mood. “I am gone for _five days_, and what do you do? You nearly let Amora kill you like the foolish, imprudent _mule_ of a mortal that you are! Look at me. I said _look at me._”

“M'trying,” Tony muttered, and he was trying, but it was really a bit difficult. His vision was blurry. Maybe he had a concussion or something. Again.

Loki made an annoyed sound and cupped Tony's face, making him look at him. There was a faint tingle of magic, and after a moment Tony's sight cleared. And what he saw was - not anger as expected, but _worry._ Raw, unfiltered and _desperate_ concern; clear as fucking day.

“Where else are you hurt?” Loki asked, brushing Tony's hair out of his face with gentle hands, and Tony thought, _oh, fuck._

He couldn't say anything. The only thing he could do was stare at Loki and wonder how he'd managed to be so goddamn stupid. It was almost impressive. Did Loki _always_ look at him like this? If so, then, really, _what the fuck._

“Anthony. Can you even hear me?”

_Loud and clear_, Tony thought, but the only answer he managed was a nod. Loki huffed and unceremoniously teleported them into the med bay of the tower, where Tony promptly retched because teleportation and a concussion were not a good combination.

Loki just hushed him and vanished the mess with a quick hand gesture. He maneuvered Tony around until he got him to lie down on a cot, now completely out of the suit. Loki sat down next to him and ran his hands over Tony's body, searching for more injuries, and healed every single one he found. Even the small cuts and harmless bruises.

“Do not do that again,” Loki said while he worked his wonders, lips twisted into something grim and angry.

“It's not like I asked her to throw a car at me,” Tony muttered, sitting up. “She was just angry that her magic didn't work on my suit.”

“You weren't watching yourself.”

“I, uh. Might have been a bit distracted, yeah.”

“Do not do it again,” Loki repeated pointedly.

Tony swallowed. “Don't go away again.”

Loki looked at him. Really looked at him, with no mask on his face, and Tony kind of wanted to kiss him. He didn't though, because if anger had smelled then Loki would have reeked of it, and actually Tony himself was still a bit salty, too.

“Do you think we should go back?” Tony asked after a long and uncomfortable moment.

Loki thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. “Thor was about to take her down. I'm sure they will be fine.”

Tony nodded slowly. “How did you know?”

“JARVIS informed me.”

Right. Of course he came when JARVIS called - but, to be fair, Tony hadn't even tried to call him, even though he'd known that Loki had taken his phone - Tony had given him one ages ago - with him.

“He told me you haven't been doing well,” Loki said, calm and even.

Tony shot a glare at him and flung his legs to the side, wanting to put his feet on the ground. They didn't reach the ground. Loki's did, of course.

“It's just been five days.” Tony tried his best to sound dismissive.

“And? Did you miss me?”

“You know damn well that I did.”

Loki smiled, just briefly.

Tony clenched his teeth and looked away. “You called it a _prank._”

“Ah,” Loki said, “yes.”

Tony's head snapped around again so he could stare at Loki. “_Ah, yes?_ That's all you've got to say?”

“What else do you want to hear?” Loki retorted, frowning at him. “You _know_ that I didn't mean it.”

“But you - you said it like you did, like you _did_ mean it, just like that!”

“I am a good liar, Anthony, that shouldn't be at all surprising to you.”

“You wanted Clint to believe it!” Tony snapped. “You wanted him - them all, you wanted them all to believe that it was a prank rather than that we are -”

“That we are what?” Loki asked, scoffing. “_Friends_?”

Tony scowled at him. “You don't get to be upset about the friends thing.”

“The _friends thing_ -”

“_I_ am upset about that.”

Judging by the way Loki looked at him, he thought that Tony had lost his mind. “You started it! You were the first to say it, _you_ kept insisting on it!”

“Because I thought you wanted that! You didn't even want anyone to _know!_”

“I was trying to protect you, you idiot,” Loki said, standing up. “And I thought _you_ wanted it! You _wanted _it to be like that. You never - ”

He stopped suddenly, lips pressed together. Tony was half prepared to see ice spread out from Loki's feet, even though he wasn't even in his Jotun form.

“The whole time,” Loki continued a moment later, after taking a breath, “you thought that I didn't even want you, yes? You thought I trusted the other _Avengers_ the same way I trust you, you accused me of not even _missing_ you, you - you thought that I have been manipulating, _using_ you -”

“Loki, no -”

But Loki glared at him fiercely enough that he shut up again.

“You never said,” Loki continued, voice quivering with anger just the tiniest bit. “You never asked, not even once. And I have never given you a _single_ reason to believe _any_ of that, and yet you do!”

Tony frowned, already opening his mouth to argue, but - but he couldn't. There wasn't anything he could say. Loki _hadn't_ given him a reason to believe any of that, Loki had - ever since they had started spending time together, Loki had never once given him a reason to think that he was using him. It had been _Tony_ who had offered him to use the workshop, and Loki had asked for permission every time before he'd entered - _every single time_ -, and it had been obvious that, out of everyone in the tower, Tony was the one Loki trusted the most, yes? That _was_ obvious. Had been for a long while now.

Tony's thoughts were reeling. He couldn't quite keep up with them.

“But you...” he got out eventually, hating how small his voice sounded. “You said that it was just about my looks. You said that.”

“Yes, because it was what you wanted to hear! Had I told you something else, you would have thrown me out of your bed _at once_.”

“Something else,” Tony echoed. “What -”

“That I do not just want you for your looks, of course. How daft_ are _you?”

Tony didn't even notice the insult. “But I thought - you didn't want me for _me_, it was -” He stopped.

“Yes?” Loki prompted after a few seconds.

Tony swallowed. “It was just because - because I was there, wanting you. I thought -”

Loki looked at him like he wanted to be the one to throw a car at Tony this time. “Ah, I see. And that made everything easier, didn't it? As long as _I_ am the one standing in the way of - of _more_, you do not have to deal with your fear of it!”

He then proceeded to spit out some curses in Asgardian, which, er. Not a good sign. Not a good sign at all.

“Loki,” Tony said after a moment, and Loki fell silent. Tony took a breath, then, “I'm sorry. I was an idiot -”

“You still are.”

“Right. Yes. It's just. I always -” He didn't manage to hold Loki's gaze, so he looked away, lifting his shoulders. “I'm not good at… these things. That's just what I do, I fuck them up. Maybe that's why I -” He broke off with a sigh, rubbing his face. “Sorry, I - maybe it would just be better if we -”

“Don't even finish that sentence.”

Tony looked at Loki again. Loki looked right back, and his eyes were a little softer now. He sighed, then came over to the cot and sat down next to Tony again.

“We are both not exactly good at this,” he said, thoughtful.

Tony huffed a dry laugh. “Not surprising, is it?”

Loki didn't say anything for a while. When he did, he didn't sound angry anymore. “I cannot tell you that your wanting me didn't make me want you in return. That would be a lie.” He frowned. “I'm not sure if you realized, but you are…”

He didn't finish the sentence, so Tony filled in, “The first?”

Loki's mouth twitched. “In a way, yes. There have been others, but none of them mattered, not truly. You do.”

Tony's mouth was kind of dry. “Oh.”

“I have been wanting you,” Loki said slowly, not quite looking at Tony, “for two years now. And I don't think I will stop soon, so if you could believe me, that would be truly lovely.”

Tony's thoughts had come to a screeching halt. His mind was blank for a long moment, then he said, his voice maybe a bit too high, “Can you say that again?”

Loki raised a questioning brow.

“You just said - two years? _Two years? _We haven't even been - this - for so long, how -”

He cut himself off. Loki looked faintly amused. Tony kept staring at him, and after a moment -

Oh. _Oh._

Loki listening when Tony told him to stop his pranks. Loki not pranking Tony all the time. Loki magicking Tony up a goddamn _sweater_ so he wouldn't freeze to death. Loki healing Tony's hand for the first time – and every other time after - with that surprisingly gentle touch of his, Loki - looking at Tony like he'd hung the fucking moon, just because he _wanted him in return._

“Oh,” Tony breathed. “Oh, fuck.”

”You are awfully dull sometimes.”

“Shut up,” Tony said, but it came out a little weak. “You can't have -”

“Loved you from the start?” Loki asked. “No. But you were interesting, and I wasn't surprised when I did fall for you in the end.”

_Loved. Loved, loved, loved, lo -_

“You were very good at hiding that,” Tony rasped.

Loki smiled at him, a little sadly, and shook his head. “You were just very good at not seeing it.”

Okay, so.

One moment. Tony needed a moment.

Why had they even fought? This was - this was an _happy ending_, wasn't it? It felt like one, sort of. Maybe.

“Loki,” Tony said, already reaching out for him, “Come here.”

Loki didn't need to be told twice, he moved closer and let Tony grasp his shirt and pull until their noses were but an inch away from each other.

“We're the biggest idiots in history,” Tony said, “and I'm in love with you, too.”

And Loki smiled. A real and bright smile that showed his dimples. “What a lucky coincidence,” he murmured, and kissed him.


	5. Chapter 5

It wasn't the end, of course. Happy, sure, but not the end.

Loki had been right; it didn't take long until the other Avengers returned to the tower as well, and of course they all came to the med bay to see if Tony was fine. Thor beamed when he saw Loki sitting next to Tony, so close that their sides were practically pressed against each other, but when he wanted to make a comment his ridiculous cape suddenly turned into what looked like an enormous version of these lace-trimmed hideosities grandmothers threw over the backrests of armchairs. Thor just frowned and tugged at the thing while Clint started to cackle, and the rest of them looked at Loki, who was examining his nails. (Tony loved him.)

Steve obviously wanted to talk to Tony, but Loki insisted that he needed rest. (Tony loved him even more.) Natasha gave a firm nod that seemed to be vaguely directed at Loki, and then she steered the others out of the room with all the authority the most dangerous spy in the world could muster. Which was a lot.

“Let's,” Tony began, but had to clear his throat and try again, “Let's go upstairs?”

Loki nodded and leaned in to kiss Tony's temple, softer than he would have before. In fact, he wouldn't have kissed Tony's temple at all before; that belonged into the category of things they simply hadn't done.

They held hands on the whole way to the elevator, and they didn’t let go when they reached it, either. At least not at first - the elevator needed eighteen seconds to reach the penthouse, Tony let go of Loki’s hand and pulled the god into a kiss after about seven of them. Loki made a soft noise low in his throat and braced himself on the railing as he crowded Tony against it, his armour changing into a simple shirt and linen pants. Tony appreciated that, because it would make things a lot easier later, but he did miss the feel and smell of leather a bit. Not for long, though, because then Loki kissed him and their clothes were suddenly the very last thing on Tony’s mind. He reached up to cup Loki’s face, one hand wandering further to the nape of Loki’s neck. The kiss was chaste, compared to most other kisses they’d shared, just lips against lips that opened with a soft gasp, a warm rush of breath; the hint of a smile. Tony pushed up against Loki, trying to deepen the kiss, and Loki obliged for a while before pulling back. They had reached the penthouse already, the doors were open, but honestly Tony didn’t even really notice.

“Loki?” He asked, breathless, not sure what was wrong. But there seemed to be something wrong, of _course_ there was something wrong, Loki wouldn’t look at him with that much desperation otherwise. “Do you want me to -”

Loki shook his head and kissed him again, brief and firm. “Just this,” he said lowly, closing his eyes and touching his forehead to Tony’s, “I want - nothing else.”

Tony swallowed and nodded, fingers rubbing at Loki’s neck almost on their own account. Loki liked that, Tony knew, and of course Loki knew that Tony knew that he liked that, and judging by his smile as he pressed closer he liked _that_, too.

“We have time, yes?” Loki said quietly, hands coming to rest on Tony’s sides. “We could… go slow.” He kissed Tony’s cheek, then the corner of his mouth. “Please?”

Tony swallowed. He got it, of course. It wasn’t like they’d always been rough with each other, and it hadn’t been exactly impersonal either, but it had never been… _this_. Not quite. But, fine. Tony could go slow. He hadn’t done the whole making love thing in a bit, but he could. He was very good at it, actually, and liked it, the - the giving. He’d just always had problems with _being made love to_, had never quite known how to deal with all that tenderness. But, to be fair, he hadn’t experienced it very often, either.

“And you could stay in bed,” Loki continued. “The whole night, I mean. There won’t be any nightmares, I promise.”

Tony looked at him - bright green eyes and an expectantly lifted brow - and nodded. “Anything you want,” he said. He hoped his voice hadn't come out too hoarsely, but it probably had. Hardly mattered at this point, though, so whatever. “Anything.”

Loki made one of his sounds - not really a moan but not only a hum either, something in between, it didn't matter; Tony wanted to hear it again. He stretched and kissed his friend - his _lover_, and Loki kissed back.

They stood there for a while. Tony had his hands buried in Loki's hair because hell, he _loved_ Loki's hair, and he also happened to love it when Loki pushed him against a wall, because Loki did that perfectly. The railing pressed against Tony's back a bit uncomfortably, but he didn't really mind, not as long as Loki kept kissing him like this. It was a bit artless, but the way Tony kissed back was artless, too; maybe that was just what happened when all raw need and, yup, _tenderness_ came in, they made it easy to forget about technics.

Tony was the first to let his hands wander beneath Loki's shirt, more than ready to touch the god's cool skin in all the places Tony _knew_ would make Loki come undone in time. Loki pressed even closer in reaction. He began tracing Tony's jawline with both lips and teeth and finally bit down on that patch of skin below Tony's ear that had him moaning, hips urging forward.

Loki chuckled, breath brushing the shell of Tony's ear. “Slow,” he reminded him, and Tony dug his fingers into Loki's sides a little harder.

“Yeah, sure, but can we - we can go slow in the bedroom, right?”

Loki laughed, then teleported them both for the second time today, this time to Tony's bed, which resulted in Tony almost puking for the second time today. Only almost, though, so it was fine, but Tony still didn't keep himself from glaring at Loki.

“You did that on purpose.”

“You beat me with a stick,” Loki reminded him.

Tony propped himself up on his elbows so he could give Loki the appropriate affronted look. “Oh, right, and you _never_ beat me with a stick. Never.”

“Never,” Loki agreed, starting to take off Tony's shoes. “Not on purpose, anyway.”

“You're just too fast.”

“You're just not fast enough.”

Tony huffed and lay back down again to pout at the ceiling. Loki laughed quietly, and then there were hands pushing up Tony’s shirt, fingers stroking tenderly over his hip bones. Tony squirmed a little under the touch, heart beating faster; Loki tossing him on the bed and fucking him from behind was a lot easier than this, somehow.

“Anthony. Are you alright?”

“Hm?” Tony lifted his head and saw Loki straddling his legs, head cocked to one side. “Yeah? Yeah, I’m fine. Sure.”

Loki gave him a look that said very clearly that he didn’t believe him, but that look was also very fond. He looked away briefly, cool hands still resting on Tony’s belly. “It’s been a long day,” he said then. “We could watch a movie?”

Tony stared at him. “But you wanted -”

“We have time,” Loki said, gently pulling Tony’s shirt back down again. “And I do not wish for you to be uncomfortable.”

“I’m not uncomfortable. Loki, I - I want you, you know. It’s just -”

Loki leaned down, supporting himself on the mattress, and shut Tony up with a kiss. “You have me,” he said then, meeting Tony’s eyes. “Completely. But you will still have me tomorrow, too. I could make tea -”

“Coffee.”

“You won’t be able to sleep if you drink coffee now, so no.”

“But Loki -”

“Cocoa?”

Tony considered that for a moment, then sighed. “Fine. But don’t magic it. It tastes weird when you magic it.”

Loki rolled his eyes but nodded, kissing Tony again before he got out of bed. He left the bedroom, and Tony tried to make himself comfortable in the bed. After a moment he stood up and changed out of his undersuit into sleeping clothes, then crawled back into back again. He felt a bit bad. But well, it wasn’t like Loki was wrong; they did have time. It didn’t take long until Loki returned with two mugs in hand. He set them on the nightstand and then hesitantly sat down next to Tony, leaning against the headboard.

“I’m actually sort of tired,” Tony admitted, making grabby hands.

Loki smiled as he handed Tony the cocoa. “As I said, it’s been a long day.”

“Mhhm. JARVIS, put on - I don’t know. Something.”

“_War and Peace_,” Loki suggested.

Tony groaned. “No, not that. Come on. It’s -”

“Lovely.”

“What is it with you and these damn long and complicated books, huh? And you’ve seen the movie before.”

“I made you cocoa.”

“You didn’t make me coffee.”

“I love you.”

Tony stared into his mug for a moment. “JARVIS,” he said then. “_War and Peace_, please.” Directed to Loki he added, “That’s so not fair.”

Loki’s smile was the smuggest thing Tony had ever seen and god, he loved it. He swallowed and took a sip of cocoa; it was really good.

Loki’s lips where on his temple again, suddenly, then on his cheek. The god let out a small breath. “Anthony,” he said, very quietly. “Tell me?”

Tony blinked, turning his head. “Oh. Sorry. I mean.”

Loki had stilled. “You don't have to.”

“No, I - I love you, too.”

Loki made a pleased sound and suddenly both of their mugs were gone - back on the nightstand, as a look confirmed - and Loki was pressing close, burying his face in the crook of Tony’s neck. Tony swallowed and then turned toward him, wrapping his arms around Loki in return.

“I love you.” he said again, because it was true and because Loki obviously liked hearing it. “I really do.”

“And I you,” Loki said softly, pressing a kiss to Tony’s neck.

“But I want that cocoa. So if you just -”

Loki grumbled something and shifted, tucking himself against Tony’s side a little more loosely so that Tony could still use his hands. The mug with cocoa was back in them just a second later.

“Thanks,” Tony said, feeling a lot better now, and kissed the top of Loki’s head.

“You’re insufferable,” Loki told him, but his tone was so fond that it just made Tony grin.

_You love me_, he thought, then again and again, because it was true and because he liked thinking it. _You love me._

The movie was still boring, though.

❄

The next morning, Tony woke up in the bed in the penthouse – maybe (most likely) their bed and their penthouse now - and found that he didn't really want to leave the bed anytime soon. He'd slept for a few hours, so usually he would probably stand up, but a, he was exhausted after fighting and making up and then dealing with the rest of the team, and b, Loki was still asleep, and Loki looked cute when he slept.

Tony huddled closer to Loki, because he could. Buried his face in the crook of the god's neck, breathing in, and thought, _yup, this is nice._ Also indescribably scary, but definitely nice. He'd just deal with the fear later.

He didn't know how much time had passed, but eventually a hand started stroking his air. Loki must have woken up. Tony hummed in acknowledgment and kept his eyes close, hoping quietly that Loki wouldn't start a Conversation. They still had things to talk about and figure out, but that didn't have to be _now_, did it?

Thankfully, “Good morning,” was all Loki said, and it sounded like he was smiling.

Tony wrapped his arm around Loki's middle. They had never been in a bed together before, not like this, dressed in sleeping clothes and cuddling, just for the sake of it. The world was weird.

It didn't take long, then Loki was positively wrapped around him, arms and legs keeping Tony right where he was. That wasn't new; Loki had probably been an octopus in another life. He liked knowing that Tony wouldn't go anywhere, and he'd never really bothered to hide that - Tony had been fucking _blind._

“Are you awake?” Loki whispered after a while, his tone making Tony smile.

“Maybe?”

Loki hummed and carefully disentangled their limbs, then rolled Tony onto his back. Tony had to laugh and stretched, arms above his head as he grinned up at Loki. Loki seemed almost giddy when he leaned down to kiss Tony, eyes sparkling and dimples showing again, and Tony still wondered how he had managed to miss this.

Loki's fingers had already found their way beneath Tony's top, and it was all a little easier now. It felt like other mornings they had shared - rare mornings after Tony hadn't gotten up again the middle of the night, then waking up together and deciding to have sex because, well, it had seemed like the logical thing to do. Because there hadn't been another reason they had always woken up entangled, right? No.

This, though. There was another reason for this, and that reason was all too obvious in Loki's eyes, now that he wasn't hiding it anymore, and Tony… Tony needed to get a closer look at it. He wanted to taste it, too, this new and scary thing they were about to find and figure out, he wanted to take it apart and poke and prod at it until it made sense, because that was what he did with things he didn't understand.

Loki's breath was hot in his mouth, a sharp contrast to the cool fingers that were all over Tony's upper body. Tony had grabbed Loki's shoulders, one hand now firmly resting on the back of Loki's neck to keep him close. Now he pushed until Loki got the message and let Tony turn them around. He straddled Loki's hips and moved to take off his shirt, but Loki pulled himself up and took hold of Tony's wrists, distracting him with a kiss.

“Let me,” he murmured against Tony's lips, breathless.

“Anything,” Tony whispered back, the words he'd said yesterday echoing in his mind, and Loki smiled.

He grabbed the hem of Tony's shirt and carefully pulled it over his head to toss it aside. The light of the arc reactor was a bit annoying, but Loki had said very early on that he didn't mind it. He ran his fingers through Tony's hair, then cupped his face and kissed him again. Tony held onto him tightly and kissed back, slowly but not softly, not quite; he could feel that Loki was already hard. Tony ground his hips down just a bit and relished the moan Loki reacted with. Loki's hands stroked down Tony's back and came to rest on his ass, pulling him close and close and closer yet, until he was right there where Loki wanted and needed him. Which was by chance exactly where Tony wanted to be.

Loki tugged at the waistband of Tony's pants, then slid his fingers right past it and wrapped them around Tony's cock, making him break the kiss with a strangled gasp and a laugh that might have been a curse. Loki smiled and kissed the corner of his mouth, his cheek, nibbled at his earlobe. Tony was grinning, too, but he was also distracted by the steady movements of Loki's hand, which only got worse - so much _better_ \- when Loki's palm was suddenly a bit slick, smoothing his strokes.

“I fucking -,” Tony began, trailing off when Loki sucked at the skin right above Tony's pulse point.

“Yes?” Loki asked when he was satisfied with the mark he'd left, trailing his lips up Tony's throat again. “You were saying?”

“- love magic,” Tony finished, panting, and Loki _purred_ and kissed him, tongue playing with Tony's in a way that was absolutely dirty and all kinds of wonderful.

Somehow, Tony managed to concentrate enough to rid Loki of his shirt, too, which sadly resulted in him having to let go of Tony's dick. But well, you can't have anything, and being able to run his hands over Loki's bare chest was rather nice, too. He felt Loki's heartbeat, his breaths - none of those raised lines he'd seen so often by now, though, even though Tony _knew_ that they were there, beneath the glamour.

“You could change,” he blurted out, between gasps because Loki had started mouthing at his throat again.

Loki stopped and lifted his head, frowning. “Pardon?”

“You could -”

“No.”

Tony opened his mouth to argue, but Loki kept him from doing so by kissing him. At first Tony wanted to protest, but then he quickly decided that yes, they had time, and kissing Loki was far better than arguing, anyway.

So they kissed. And they kept kissing even when Loki turned them around and pinned Tony to the mattress, and also when he tried to free Tony from his pants, which didn't work all to well with Loki still straddling him. To be fair they then had to stop kissing for a moment because they had to laugh, and also because Loki had to clamber off Tony to pull the pants down properly. There was something wriggling and shuffling, but eventually they were both naked and still laughing when Loki came to kneel between Tony's legs and leaned down again, kissing him.

“You could've used magic,” Tony said, breath hitching, when Loki sat up again.

“I like undressing you like this.” Loki took hold of Tony's ankle and lifted his leg, kissing Tony's calf, the inside of his knee, his inner thigh.

It was a ridiculously sappy move and a part of Tony loved it; he'd propped himself up on his elbows to watch. Another, long-established part of him didn't know how to react to Loki's smile, the softness of his touch, the _I love you_ character of the kisses. He'd forgotten how to breathe and fuck, Loki didn't have any right to do this, to be this careful and gentle; it wasn't like Tony would _break_ if -

Of course, Loki knew that. He knew that Tony wouldn't break if he'd been a bit rougher with him, he knew that Tony wouldn't _mind_ if he'd been a bit rougher with him. He just wanted this. He wanted _Tony_, like _this_, and to be fair Tony wanted it too - for a moment he thought about what he wanted to do to Loki, and while everything from stroking his hair to fucking him into the mattress was appealing, kissing every inch of him and showing him that _god, I love you, I really do_ would be… Nice. It would be nice, because he wanted Loki to know, and of course it was the same the other way around. Loki wanted him to know, too, and so he was being careful and gentle; Loki wasn't careful and gentle _with anybody else._ At least Tony hadn't ever seen him like this with anybody else, and he'd never seen Loki smile at somebody like he did when they were alone either, so this was Tony's, at least for now.

It was _his_, and he'd enjoy the hell out of it for as long as he had it.

“Loki,” he said, voice breathy, “come up here for a sec, I -”

And Loki was already there, pressing his smile to Tony's lips just as gently. He pulled back again after just a moment, supporting himself on the mattress next to Tony's head. “Are you alright?”

“You don't have to constantly ask me that.”

“Are you?”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” Loki said, then let his mouth wander down Tony's body again.

Apparently, kissing every inch of the other was a plan Loki liked, too, because that was what he did next. His hand steadily but oh so slowly stroking Tony's cock, lips and tongue and teeth moving and scraping over Tony's thighs, his belly, his chest; Tony thought that Loki might actively be trying to make him lose his mind. _God, I love you, I really do._

Thankfully, Loki couldn't keep doing that forever - or well, obviously he could; he was very stubborn and thorough and also very untiring. But he took pity on Tony after a while and was panting himself, cheeks flushed, lips swollen, hair already a _mess_. It was a familiar sight by now, but it hadn't stopped being absolutely mesmerizing. Probably never would. But it was also _familiar_, just like Loki's slick fingers as he wrapped them around Tony's cock again. He knew exactly what Tony liked, he knew how to make him squirm and gasp and keen, and judging by the low and pleased sounds he made, this was exactly what Loki liked, too. And then there were kissing again, suddenly, or rather moaning into each other's mouth as Loki sank down on Tony slowly and deeply and _carefully_, their fingers entwined on the pillow next to Tony's head.

And, yes. Familiar. But the soft way Loki whispered Tony's name - not the name he heard the most; nobody else called him that - was _new_, and Tony whispering back a _love you_ was new as well. But that didn't keep him from saying it again and again because the sound Loki made when he heard it was goddamn _perfect._

Loki came first, with Tony's hand wrapped around his cock, hips stuttering as he let his forehead drop on Tony's shoulder. Just seconds later Tony stifled a moan against Loki's messy hair, his last upward thrusts jerky but still unhurried; they had time.

Loki stayed exactly where he was for some time, while they both caught their breaths and tried to make their brains come back online, but eventually he got too heavy for Tony - what with his gorgeous but weird alien body being much heavier than it looked - and rolled off. He pressed himself against Tony's side again immediately, though, one leg thrown over Tony's (octopus, definitely). Tony stroked the god's back, quietly wondering how those lighter blue lines would feel beneath his fingertips.

“Well,” he said into the warm and sticky silence of the room, his voice rough.

“Well,” Loki echoed, smiling into Tony's skin.

Tony swallowed. “That happened.”

“Yes,” Loki agreed. “It did.”

❄

(Still not the end.)

❄

“I do not feel like watching a movie, anyway,” Loki tried for the sixth time.

“You're coming,” Tony told him. They were already in the elevator, for heaven's sake.

Loki continued to pout, but he didn't teleport away or anything, so he was probably just being a diva. Tony squeezed his hand, and while Loki didn't squeeze back, he also didn't pull his hand away. Looked away and pretended that they weren't even holding hands, though, so yes, definitely a diva.

“It'll be fine,” Tony said, just a second before the door of the elevator opened with a _ping._

“I will break his arm if he says _one word._”

“Yeah,” Tony said, sighing. “It's that attitude that has me _slightly _worried, but - oh, hi.”

“Hello,” Thor said, grinning knowingly at them. He'd come out of the kitchen, probably after hearing their voices. He was also licking at a spoon.

“What's that?” Tony asked.

“Nutella.”

“Oh, _nice_.”

Loki rolled his eyes and pulled Tony to the TV room, where the others - except Thor and Steve - had already made themselves comfortable. To Tony's surprise, Natasha and Steve were sitting on the floor, so he and Loki could have one of the sofas all for themselves.

“Hey,” he greeted them, wondering whether he should let go of Loki's hand because the god had tensed up so much. Loki's iron grip didn't allow him to let go, though, so maybe hand holding was helping a little.

They sat down, and after a moment Bruce started telling Tony about some article he'd read the other day. They talked about it and Clint asked a few confused questions while Natasha offered Loki chocolate, and shortly after Thor and Steve joined them with popcorn and drinks. It was Natasha's turn to choose the movie, so they watched _The Hunger Games_, and honestly it was all the same as always.

Only that Loki was sitting tucked against Tony's side now, closer than he would have been before. He'd been very tense at first, but eventually he started to relax, positively melting against Tony. Tony knew that it wouldn't take much to make Loki perk up and snap, but for now it was fine. Actually, it was going much better than expected.

By now, Loki had been present at many movie nights and other “team activities”, but this was the first one since he and Tony were… well. Official? Something like that, anyway. The battle had been almost two weeks ago, so it was all still new and more than a little overwhelming, and they had spent the better part of the last days arguing whether the Avengers or SHIELD would have Tony's head for <strike>fucking</strike> being in love with a former enemy. Because that was what Loki had been worrying about this whole time, apparently. (He wasn't used to his relationships being accepted; every lover he'd had in Asgard he'd had in secret. So, in conclusion, _Tony_ would probably have _Odin's_ head at some point.)

Turned out that on Earth, nobody really cared. As for SHIELD, Fury didn't “care for who you're fucking in your freetime, Stark”. And, well, of course he didn't, and why would he care about it being Loki? Loki had been proving that he was a valuable member of the team for two years now, as long as him being Tony's lover didn't keep them from being effective, SHIELD didn't give a shit. And the other Avengers? Well, they had been extraordinarily understanding and kind these last days, which was actually a bit suspicious, but not unwelcome. So they were fine, really; nobody cared. Oh, sure, the public would have cared a lot, but it didn't know yet. Tony played with the thought of having a press conference some time - he'd already told Pepper, who still took care of these sort of things for him. She'd been happy for him, sincerely, and actually it had been nice, talking to her.

When the movie was over, Loki tugged at Tony's hand, which Tony took as the sign that Loki wanted to leave, so they did. Loki let out a relieved breath until the rest of the team was out of side, pressing a little closer to Tony as they made their way back to the elevator.

“See?” Tony said, “I told you it would be -”

“Hey, sorry, can you - uh, could I -”

Loki turned around fast enough that Tony would have stumbled, if it hadn't been for Loki's arm around his middle, keeping him close. A few steps away from them stood Clint, his hands in the air.

“Please don't throw a knife at me,” he said to Loki. “Not necessary.”

Loki narrowed his eyes. “I usually decide that during or after a conversation, not before.”

“What's up, Clint?” Tony asked, ignoring his boyfriend (because he _was_ allowed to think and say that now, even though Loki thought the term was ridiculous). “If you want to be an asshole, you can go and be an asshole to somebody else.”

“Nah,” Clint said. “I think I'll stay here and risk being stabbed.”

“The risk is becoming higher,” Loki informed him, not unkindly.

Clint gave him a crooked grin, shuffling his feet a bit.””I just - you know, wanted to say that I'm sorry?”

Tony blinked. “Oh.”

“I mean, we all knew that I was a dick. Kind of. It's just - difficult, sometimes.” He looked at Loki, who - to Tony's surprise - relaxed.

“I understand,” the god said. “I will not tolerate it should you try to interfere in our relationship, but I do understand.”

Clint held his hands up again. “No interfering's gonna happen, promise.”

Loki nodded. “Good.”

“Wow,” Tony said. “That was surprisingly civil. I kind of want to give you both gold stars or something.”

Loki rolled his eyes, looking like the most bored person in existence. Clint just shrugged and looked at Tony again. “I _am _happy for you. Even though I think you're insane.”

“Thank you.”

“Also I'm a bit scared that the pranks will get worse again now.”

“You should be,” Loki said, taking Tony's hand again and moving to leave.

Tony gave Clint a thumbs up and let himself be pulled to the elevator.

“Thor spoke to them,” Loki hissed when the door closed after them. “I _knew_ it. He's been giving me these odd looks for days now.”

”Really? I thought it might've been Natasha. They really were weirdly nice.”

“Maybe it was both.”

“Well, who cares?” Tony said, shrugging. “It went well, and they won't bother us about this. You can relax now.”

“I am perfectly relaxed. I was perfectly relaxed the whole time.”

“No, you were racking your pretty head about this. Constantly.”

“Pretty, hm?” Loki asked quietly, pulling Tony close.

Tony couldn't keep from laughing. “And now you're trying to deflect.”

“Is it working?”

Of course it was.

❄

Tony woke up freezing. He woke up freezing because the temperature of the body next to him had dropped a lot all of a sudden, and while Tony didn't really mind that, he _was_ fucking freezing, so he got out of bed and tapped to the closet to get himself a sweater and a pair of socks.

Loki didn't wake up, not even when Tony crawled back into bed and tugged at the blanket until it didn't cover Loki anymore. It wasn't like Loki needed to stay warm like this, right? Tony wrapped himself up in the blanket and then just lay around for a while, watching Loki in the dim light of the arc reactor. But eventually he closed his eyes again, Loki's even breaths lulling him to sleep.

When he woke up the next time, it was because of the gentle kiss to his forehead and the arms that pulled him against a now warmer chest. Tony mumbled something he didn't even understand himself and huddled closer, sighing contentedly when Loki started playing with his hair.

“I'm so sorry,” Loki whispered. ”I do not know why it keeps happening.”

“S'fine,” Tony replied softly. “S'_good._ You change when you're relaxed now. That's good.”

“I would like to be in better control of it. Being that vulnerable while I am asleep -”

Tony huffed. “You're not _vulnerable_ like that. Less so, in fact, I thought we'd settled that.”

They had _tested_ it, actually, in a long and - not always in a good way - exciting process of attacking Loki with various things and methods while he was in his Jotun form. His ice powers were a fucking good protection, as it hard turned out; the shields he formed with them were nearly unbreakable, and the ice made his skin much more resilient. It was _amazing_, but of course Loki didn't quite see it that way.

“You must hate it,” he said quietly.

“I don't.”

“I don't want you to be cold.”

“It's _fine._”

“If I accidentally touched you -”

“Then that would be fine, too, Loki, you _know that. _I don't mind.”

“I do.”

Tony, now completely awake, sighed and propped himself up on his elbow to look at Loki. “You don't have to. There's nothing wrong about it.”

“I can't help it,” Loki said, sharply.

Tony raised a brow, and after a moment Loki's harsh expression cracked open and revealed something much more sincere, something he immediately hid against Tony's hoodie, pressing close. Tony didn't hesitant to put his arms around Loki; of course he didn't. Things like this - all that truthfulness and tenderness - were getting easier, bit by bit. It was still a bit of a surprise every time when Loki greeted him with a kiss to his cheek or palm, and sometimes Tony still winced at things like that, out of reasons even he himself didn't fully understand. And Loki still had quiet days and also snappish days, and days when he needed to be reminded that touching Tony was a thing he was allowed to do. But yeah, it was getting easier. Bit by bit.

“You could let me touch you,” Tony said, murmuring the words into Loki's hair while stroking his back. “I know you like touching me when you're blue. We could, you know. Switch.”

Loki shifted a little - he had heard, and he was thinking about it -, but kept his face hidden. His voice was muffled when he said, “Why?”

Tony let his head drop back and looked at the ceiling. “Maybe it would help? Also I'd like to.”

“_Why?”_

“It's you, sweetheart. Of course I'd like to.”

Loki stayed silent. Maybe he would pretend to be asleep soon; he was good at avoiding conversations he didn't want to have. Tony continued stroking his lover's back, hoping it would help him relax.

“Why is it different?”

Loki sighed. “Why is what different?”

“You don't want me to touch you, but you have no problems with you touching me. I just - I don't understand why.”

Loki rolled onto his back and looked at the ceiling, face blank. “Of course it's different.”

“But why?”

“I just don't want it,” Loki said and it was very nearly a snarl, something Tony was entirely unimpressed by.

“We both know that's a lie.”

Loki ground his teeth, but he didn't stand up, so Tony counted it as a win. He reached out and ran his hand over Loki's chest, feeling his heartbeat quicken. Tony smiled.

“Look, I'm not trying to be a dick here,” he said, tone still careful. “But - You like it. You want it. I want to give it to you, so why don't you let me?”

Loki grasped Tony's wrist, stopping him. “You should not have to,” he replied, his voice too quiet. He looked at Tony, and there was the same old look of frustration and bitterness again, the same look he'd had when he had opened the door to Tony, in that night that had started all of this. He looked away again and repeated, “You shouldn't have to.”

Tony wanted to hug him, so he did. Pressed his lips to Loki's jawline, too, and smiled when Loki angled his head to give him better access. “Loki, I _like_ it when you touch me. I let you. Why do you -”

“It's very generous of you,” Loki interrupted. “Letting me do that. But I can't - I cannot ask the same of you, I couldn't. You shouldn't have to.”

Yes, right. This wasn't getting them anywhere. Tony sat up and looked down at Loki, raising a brow. “It's bullshit, you know.”

Loki met his eyes. “What is?”

“Just,” Tony vaguely indicated their general situation, “this. What do you think will happen, hm? It's just touches, whether you touch me or I you - it doesn't make a difference. And what do you think you are - _infectious_? You're not.”

Loki swallowed visibly. He was thinking, Tony could tell, so Tony waited, and eventually Loki spoke up.

“There was a game,” he said slowly, “when we were young. I barely remember, I was not old enough to play it with Thor and his friends, and when I was old enough it had long started to bore them. But other children kept playing it, over the years. I think - I think Fandral invented it.”

“Fandral?”

Loki waved dismissively. “One of Thor's friends, it hardly matters.”

“And the game?”

“Ah.” Loki took a breath, glancing at Tony. “Well, it's similar to that game Midgardian children play, I think, where one of them - catches the others?”

“Oh, tag. That's tag.”

“Yes. So, one of them would start it, and,” he reached out and tapped Tony's arm, “declare that another is the Jotun, like this. So the others run away, and the Jotun has to catch them, and whenever they touch someone -”

“They're contaminated,” Tony concluded. “Right?”

Loki's mouth twitched into a bitter smile. “Correct. Two Jötnar, now. Then three, then four, and so on. The last Aesir wins.”

“That's ridiculous,” Tony said. “Why don't the Jöt-nar,” he had to pronounce it slowly to pronounce it correctly, “win?”

Loki blinked. “Hm?”

“Well, they're clearly in the majority. They should win.”

“That is,” Loki said flatly, “not the point I wanted to make.”

“I know,” Tony said. He threw one leg over Loki, straddling his hips, and leaned forward to cup Loki's face. “I know, but - Loki, that was just a game. I know it - it sucks, that you grew up like that, and one day I'll go up there and tell them all to fuck off -”

“You wouldn't survive that.”

“See if I care,” Tony said, flippant.

Loki put his hands on Tony's hips, squeezing gently. “I do.”

Tony kissed him, then put his hand on Loki's chest again. “It's just a body, Loki,” he said quietly, holding Loki's gaze, “no matter what color it is. It's also _yours_, and I love it, even though you can't. And you're _not_ fucking infectious, and I won't get sick from touching you. I don't get sick from _you_ touching _me_.”

“I know. I am aware that I'm not making sense.”

“This doesn't have anything to do with sense,” Tony said, “and that's fine. It's all bullshit, but it's fine.”

“You're angry,” Loki stated, sounding fascinated.

“Of course I am. Asgard is a pile of shit. They don't deserve you.”

_That_ made Loki smile, and he hooked his hand around the back of Tony's neck to pull him down and into another kiss.

❄

Tony had not planned to drag Thor into this. He was aware that Loki wouldn't like that, so he tried his best to not let Loki notice anything - which was surprisingly easily, with JARVIS' help. Also it turned out that Thor could be really fucking helpful if given the right task.

He'd returned to the tower just a few weeks after he'd left, but he and Tony hadn't gotten to meet for another few days. Now Thor was in the elevator, though, carrying a huge wooden chest. He greeted Tony with a bright grin.

“Hello,” he said, voice almost a whisper.

“Yes, hi,” Tony said. “I'm not sure how much time we have, so -”

Thor nodded and entered the penthouse. The chest looked insanely heavy, but he didn't seem bothered by it. “Where do you want it?”

“Er, one of the guest rooms,” Tony replied, already leading the way. “He doesn't go in there. Hell, how many did you _find_? Looks like -”

Thor's grin widened. “Almost three dozen! Mother helped. I'm sure Loki will be happy.”

“Yeah, we all know how much he loves surprise,” Tony said dryly. He was a bit nervous, even though that was ridiculous.

“Where is he?” Thor asked as Tony opened the door to the guest bedroom.

“Sparring with Nat. Sometimes one of them gets pissed very early on, so I don't know how long he'll be gone.”

“I see.” Thor set the chest down on the floor, then rifled through the pockets of his jeans and pulled out a pair of sunglasses. “Here. Mother said they will allow you to read every language you are unfamiliar with.”

Tony's eyes widened, and he snatched the glasses from Thor's hand to inspect them. “Wait, really? How does that work?”

Thor frowned. “I'm afraid I don't know, exactly. But it's a very powerful spell. Oh, she also -” He pulled two envelopes out of another pocket. “Here, she also gave me these. This is for Loki, and this -”

“For me?” Tony asked, staring at his full name that had been written on one of the envelopes in careful and neat handwriting. “From Frigga?”

“Yes.”

“Huh. Okay, that's - thanks. Tell her thanks, next time you see her, and - thank you, too. And please don't tell him anything, else I'll have to sleep on the sofa for weeks.”

Thor promised, and then made himself scarce again, leaving before Loki might suddenly come back. Tony stayed in the guest room for a bit, staring at the two envelopes. He put Loki's into the chest, then opened his own.

He'd never learn what stood in the letter Frigga had written to Loki, because Loki never told him. Tony's was less a letter than a simple card, and on it were written just two words in the same neat handwriting:

_Thank you._

❄

There was not much Tony loved more than seeing Loki like this: black hair disarrayed, red eyes flaring, grinning widely. Ice moving and changing, succumbing to nothing but his very will - daggers, spears, or sometimes just snowflakes fluttering down from the ceiling. It was cold and sharp and at the same time _playful; _once Loki stomped a single time and the entire ground turned into an ice rink, and then he turned to Tony with a grin and blades for Tony’s shoes, made of ice and crystal. Because that was _Loki_, when you got down to it - he wasn’t called trickster and prankster for nothing. He liked to have fun, and as soon as he got better at controlling his powers, he began fooling around with them. (Steve woke up with his entire room covered in snow, once, and Thor had icicles growing in his hair for weeks.) And Tony watched it all, loved watching it all, because it meant that Loki was beginning to understand that his Jotun form wasn’t _just_ deadly, but so much more than that.

To be fair, Tony nearly died the first time Loki used his ice powers in their sparring, but, honestly? So worth it.

❄

“Trust me, I'm very good at this.”

“Things never end well when you say that.”

“Things _always_ end well when I say that.”

“You said it literally two seconds before my armour blew up in both of our faces.”

“Okay, yes, fine, but that wasn't my fault. You wanted me to repair it even though you knew it wouldn't work, just because you wanted to have a good laugh. Because you're an asshole like that.”

“You love me.”

“Lie down, loveable asshole. I don't have all day.”

Loki scooted closer on the bed and trailed his fingers over Tony's thigh, smiling. “How about you lie down, hm? I could -”

“Nope.”

Loki withdrew his hand, pouting, and moved to lie down in the middle of the bed. “It was worth a try,” he said sourly, and Tony laughed and patted his lover's leg.

“You almost had me there, I swear.”

“Liar,” Loki accused him lightly, turning onto his stomach. He was already shirtless and seemed perfectly relaxed, but Tony knew better.

He knelt next to Loki on the bed and stroked Loki's back with his fingertips, smiling when goosebumps followed his touch. “You don't have to, you know. Change, I mean.”

“I thought me changing was the whole point of this.”

“The whole point of this,” Tony said, straddling Loki's legs, “is that I want to get my hands all over you.”

“Do hurry, then. I don't have all - _oh._”

“Told you I'm good at this,” Tony muttered and dug his hands into Loki's shoulders again, searching for knots. Loki had a lot of them, and Tony let his fingers dive right into them, wanting the tension to disappear.

“Mhhm,” Loki agreed, face half buried in the pillow.

Tony smiled. It was almost funny, how fast Loki could turn to putty in Tony's hands. Also thrilling, and a little heartbreaking (like everything that had to do with Loki). Because this was the thing: Loki liked touching Tony until he was all limp and pliant, but he had trouble accepting that Tony wanted to touch him, too. Not even in a sexual way, just like this - hands and skin and tiny sounds of pleasure, simply touching for the sake of touching, for the closeness and the warmth and the attention. Loki still thought that nobody could ever want to touch him like that, no matter if he was in his Jotun form or not. And Tony understood that, he did; sometimes he felt the same, even though because of other reasons. Too many people had touched him because they wanted something from him, not because they wanted to do something for him. And Loki, for too many years of his horribly long life, hadn't been touched at all.

“Good?” Tony asked under his breath, his hands now on Loki's lower back.

“Mhh.”

Tony leaned down to kiss Loki's shoulder blade and nuzzle the soft and warmed up skin. Loki let out a content sigh and sank even deeper into the bed. Tony chuckled and continued his massage, pausing now and then to kiss Loki's back or nibble at a patch of skin that seemed particularly inviting at the moment.

Okay, fine. Maybe this was a little bit sexual.

Loki changed after about twenty minutes in. It was the first time they were touching during the process, and Tony could feel it before he could see it - the temperature of the skin he'd just kissed dropping, cold rising up to meet his fingertips. Then the azure came, washing over Loki's back, the lighter blue lines appearing in their strange pattern of elegant arches and semicircles. It was beautiful, of course it was. It was also cold, but far from unbearable.

Tony went on as if absolutely nothing had changed.

Loki had started to tense up when he'd turned, but after just a few minutes Tony had kneaded the tension right out of his shoulders again. He watched, mesmerized, looked at the way his own skin tone stood out against Loki's, the play of muscles right beneath his fingers, black hair fanning over shoulders and white sheets… And also these damned lines.

Tony didn't know what it was about them. Maybe it was just that he'd never seen anything like it before, maybe it was because they just _fit_ Loki so well, maybe… Well, maybe he just liked the way they looked, and there was nothing else about them.

It was all rather symmetric, with several circles on both of Loki's shoulder blades, then four curved lines that followed his spine all the way down to his tailbone. The inner two disappeared under the waistband of his pants, but the outer markings ended in corners on his lower back. More lines peeked out from his sides, hinting at how the pattern might continue on his stomach and chest.

Tony couldn't resist, of course.

He reached up and brushed Loki's hair out of the way, which revealed the lines on Loki's neck and below his ears that ended on his cheeks. Loki had rested his head on his arms, face turned sideward, eyes firmly shut. His lips were slightly parted. The markings on his face fitted his features, elegant but peculiar, sharp lines as well as neat circles.

Tony touched one of the lines that began below Loki's hairline and traced it as it wandered down Loki's back. Loki let out a soft gasp that made Tony still.

“Do you want me to stop?”

He could see Loki swallow. Then the god lightly shook his head, eyes still closed.

Tony proceeded to follow every line on Loki's back with his fingertips. They felt a little bit like scars, only that this was _meant_ to be there. They were called heritage markings, Tony knew now. He had to bite his lip to keep from telling Loki that. All in due time.

Loki's breath had started speeding up, but he made no move to push Tony off or get away, so Tony continued. It was when he leaned down to trace one of the circles on Loki's shoulders with his lips that Loki suddenly buried his face in the pillow, letting out a strangled sound.

Tony held up his hands and blinked at the back of Loki's head. He _knew_ that sound, but - “Loki? You okay?”

It took a few seconds, but then Loki replied with a hum that sounded vaguely confirmatory.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Loki muttered, halfway between frustrated and - yup, that was definitely arousal. _Interesting._ Loki squirmed a little, then added, “I think - they're sensitive.”

“What, the lines?” Tony asked, stunned. He hadn't known _that._ “Really?”

“_Y__es_, really.”

Tony rolled his eyes at Loki's snappish tone. “You want me to avoid them, then?”

Loki let out a rush of air. Apart from that it stayed silent for a while, then, very quietly, “No.”

_Even more interesting._ Tony smiled. “Okay.”

He returned his hands to Loki's back, and continued giving the lines some special attention. The first time he ran his tongue over one of them, Loki _keened_, the sound perfectly audible even though he tried to stifle it against the pillow. Tony began feeling rather hot himself; he'd always had a weak spot for the sounds Loki made. He nibbled on one of the markings on Loki's shoulder, then bit down properly - Loki ground his hips against the mattress, moaning.

Tony climbed off Loki to give him a bit more room to move, but stayed close and leaned down to kiss Loki's shoulder, his neck, the markings below his ear.

“You're gorgeous, Lo,” he breathed, “The most perfect thing I've ever seen, I swear.”

Loki's breathing was ragged by now. He'd grasped the bed sheet, blue fingers crumpling it, and by the pointed stillness of his hips Tony could tell that he was trying to keep from humping the mattress, and only barely managing.

“You want to turn onto your back?” Tony suggested, trying his best to sound calm. He wasn't entirely sure if this was a good idea; it felt a bit like going from zero to hundred in two seconds, without having talked about it beforehand. But, well. Running before walking, right?

Loki made a noise that could probably already be counted as a whine. Tony struggled to keep his own breaths even.

“Loki,” he said, almost cooing, and stroked over Loki's began again. “Tell me, sweetheart, what do you need? If you want me to get you off -”

Loki huffed and abruptly rolled onto his back, immediately covering his eyes with his underarm. His cheeks were flushed a deep purple that also wandered down his neck and chest, causing the light blue lines to stand out even more.

“Get on with it,” he demanded through clenched teeth, his voice not much more than a strangled groan.

“You sure?”

“_Stark_.”

Tony arched a brow. That serious, was it? He stroked Loki's disarrayed hair out of his face, but let him keep his arm where it was. The god's chest was heaving with gasping breaths he only barely managed to keep under control, and Tony couldn't resist tracing the newly revealed markings with his fingers, too. Loki seemed to like it, judging by the quiet but pleased sounds he made.

After a while Tony shifted on the bed, sitting down between Loki's legs after the mage had willingly parted them for him. Tony hooked his hands under Loki's knees and arranged his legs so that they were resting on Tony's own thighs, which allowed him a good view on - well, everything. Loki's now parted lips and the tip of a blue tongue, his other hand grasping the sheets, his chest and narrow hips. Tony noticed absently that his lover's treasure trail was gone, but that made sense; Jötnar didn't have body hair. Loki was still wearing his pants, but they were straining in the front, more than just a little, and Loki let out another whine as soon as Tony's hands got anywhere near the bulge.

“I'm not going to beg,” Loki gritted out, ”so if you'd be so kind to -”

Tony hushed him and opened the laces of Loki's pants, then tugged his cock free. Loki hissed a curse - Asgardian, by the sound of it -, hips bucking upward so hard that Tony had to push them back down. He himself was marveling at the feel of Loki's cock in his hand; it was, while still far colder than Tony's skin, oddly warm in comparison to the rest of Loki's body. It was flushing purple at the tip, too, and the drop of precum that was visible there glistened like ice.

Fucking weird. Coincidentally - also ironically - one of the hottest things Tony had ever seen, but that might just have been because yes, this was _Loki_, and nobody else had ever seen him like this, and it was all _Tony's._

“I could use a bit of lube here, love,” Tony said, a bit hoarse himself.

Loki growled but complied, slicking Tony's hand with but a thought and a brief glimmer of magic.

“Much better,” Tony praised, and began stroking.

Loki started panting again, hips moving in time with Tony's hand. Tony let him, running his other hand over Loki's belly, his thighs, his legs and everything else he could reach, in a manner that was possibly a little possessive but really, Loki didn't look like he minded. Actually, Loki seemed pretty far gone already; Tony doubted that this would take long. He sped up his strokes a little, his touch firm and secure - he knew what Loki liked - and finally brought his other hand down to Loki's ass, stroking over his entrance with two fingertips. Loki cursed again, louder this time, and suddenly the fingers of Tony's second hand were wet with lube, too.

Tony had mentioned that he loved magic, right?

He pressed first one finger into Loki, then two, and watched his lover's reactions with rapt attention. Loki didn't seem to know anymore whether he wanted to buck down on Tony's fingers or thrust up into his fingers, so he did a bit of both, the movements of his hips bordering on frantic. Tony moved again and sat down on Loki's leg, this time, which allowed him to keep Loki's hips at least somewhat still. He could also grind down on Loki's thigh like this, letting out a low moan when there was finally some pressure on his cock. _Fucking hell._

He tried to concentrate on pleasing his lover, who didn't even manage to curse anymore. And he'd been right, it didn't take long until Loki came. What surprised Tony was that _he_ came as well, cock pressed against Loki's leg, the sight and feel of Loki's orgasm pushing him over the edge. He had to let go of Loki's cock to brace himself on the bed.

Fucking hell indeed.

When Loki started making uneasy noises, Tony carefully pulled his fingers out. He wiped his hands clean on the bed sheet, knowing that Loki would clean up the mess with a spell later, and proceeded to kiss Loki's thigh, his belly, his chest, until he came to lie on top of the god, who wasn't bothered by his weight. Loki was still catching his breath, and Tony wasn't much better. Might be close to dozing off, in fact.

“Too warm,” Loki muttered. “You're too warm.”

Tony immediately moved to roll off, cursing inwardly, but Loki's hands were there and kept him where was.

“No, stay,” he murmured. “Just let me -”

Ten, twenty seconds passed, but then the cold disappeared from beneath Tony, leaving behind warm Aesir skin. Loki let out a relieved breath and wrapped Tony into his arms, pulling him up enough that he could bury his nose in Tony's hair and nuzzle his ear.

“You okay?” Tony murmured.

“Surprisingly, yes,” Loki replied, voice just as soft as Tony's. “It was… pleasant. Warm.”

“Too warm?”

“Almost.” In a whisper, Loki added, “I liked it.”

He sounded so stunned that Tony had to stifle a laugh against Loki's shoulder. “I'm glad,” he managed. “Me too.”

Loki gently stroked his back. “Did you…?”

“Mhhm. Against your leg.” Tony snorted. “And in my pants, like I'm fucking thirteen.”

Loki's only response was a giddy laugh, and Tony didn't even try to stifle his own this time.

❄

Tony was nervous. He was nervous because he had no idea how Loki would react, and also because Loki was grumpy. Loki being grumpy was not a good premise. But well, Tony had _known_ that Loki would be grumpy. The trickster didn't like surprises, unless he was in on the secret and in control, and this was a surprise. A big one too.

“So this is about your secret project, then?” Loki asked, grumpily, as Tony led him to the guest room in the penthouse.

“Yup.”

“And you have been working on it in the guestroom.”

“Yup.”

“Do you keep another lover in there?”

“Yup.”

Loki stopped walking, and since Loki was about thirty times stronger than Tony, he stopped walking, too. Loki was scowling at him.

“That was a _jok_e_, _Lo,” Tony told him.

“I would prefer it if you didn't joke about things like this.”

“Okay, fine. Sorry. No, I don't keep another lover in there, because I only want you. Okay?”

Loki studied him for a moment, then nodded.

“Okay. Awesome. Can we get going then or…?”

Loki allowed Tony to drag him forward. “Why are you nervous?” He asked, his tone a little less grumpy and more careful.

“I'm not nervous.”

The answering silence sounded very skeptical.

“So,” Tony said when they reached the door, “can you promise me something?”

Loki looked at him searchingly. “That depends.”

“I just don't want you to freak out, okay? And - promise me to listen. Just that? Can you promise me that?”

Loki glanced at the door. “This is too important to you to be a mere surprise,” he stated.

“Clever,” Tony said dryly. “And yes.”

Loki gently squeezed Tony's hand. “I will listen, then. For as long as you need.”

“Great! And don't forget you said that.”

Tony opened the door and steered Loki inside. The chest Thor had brought was still standing next to the bed, only that it was open now. And, scattered on the bed and the floor and all across the room were -

“Books,” Loki stated, brows raised. “You have been reading books.”

“Yeah,” Tony said, and waited for the other shoe to drop.

Soon enough, Loki was frowning and approaching the bed, where he picked up the book closest to him. He stared at the cover for what felt like several minutes. Tony swallowed and followed his lover, and only when he stopped right next to Loki, who looked up and met his eyes.

“Thor,” he said, the look on his face cold. “Am I correct?”

Tony took a breath. “Yes, Thor. And Frigga.”

Loki snorted and tossed the book away again. “Oh, of course. Thor wouldn't even be allowed into the elvish libraries, of _course_ she had to help.” He glared at the books, then turned on his heels. “I have no need of these.”

He was already halfway out of the room, then Tony grabbed his arm and held him back.

“You promised to listen,” he reminded Loki, unwilling to back down now. “_Please, _Loki.”

“You did this,” Loki hissed and freed his arm from Tony's grip, “behind my back. You cannot _possibly_ expect me to -”

“Just five of them, then!” Tony interrupted, frustrated. “Let me show you just five of them, okay? You promised.”

Loki glared at him for a few long seconds. “Two,” he said then.

“Four.”

They stared at each other for a moment, then both sighed.

“Three?” Loki asked, and Tony grinned.

“Three,” he confirmed, then dragged Loki back to the bed.

❄

“So,” Tony said, looking down at the three books he'd chosen. “According to Thor and your mum -”

“She is not my mother.”

“According to Thor and _Frigga_, most of these are, as you guessed correctly, from the royal library of that elvish people whose name I can't pronounce.”

“Ljósálfar.”

“Right. And Thor said these elves don't like lying and are pretty accurate historians, so these,” Tony patted the cover of one of the books, “are probably the best source of knowledge about the Jötnar you'll ever get.”

Loki was watching him closely, his face blank. “I suppose so.”

“Yes, so. You're in luck, because I read them all.”

Loki's mask of boredom crumbled, revealing his surprise. “No, you can't have. The language -”

“Yes, right, see, _Frigga_,” Tony stretched and picked up the glasses from the nightstand, “gave me these, and they've got some sort of translation spell woven into them. Neat, right?” He grinned. “So yes, I read them all, and am now officially the best expert on Jotun topics you'll find on Earth.”

Loki just stared at him.

“Okay, admittedly I don't understand like half of this,” Tony said, gesturing at the dozens of books lying around all over the room. “But I think I got the most important parts. And I liked these three books.”

He pointed at the one on the left.

“This is about social structure and stuff,” he began. “The Jötnar live in tribes - six big ones in total, but now and then a few run off to found smaller ones. Two live up in Jotunheim's mountains, one under the ground, two in the forests, then again one in, uh, I guess you could call it tundra? Anyway, they all have their own leader, who's not so much king or queen as the, er, chief. The elves have a fancy name for them, but I can't pronounce that one, either, so we'll just go with chiefs. In four tribes they are elected in a process that involves both long discussions and duels, in the other two it's a bit more similar to, well, monarchy. The most capable child inherits the title. There is -”

“I don't see the point of this,” Loki interrupted.

”Shh. Remember your promise.”

Loki huffed, annoyed, but he didn't interrupt Tony a second time.

“So, we have all these tribes, but there's also Utgard, which is -” Tony flipped through the book until he found the page he was looking for; it showed a drawing of what looked like a very icy palace. “Here. The High King's residence. And that _is_ a monarchy, but in theory every chief has the right to challenge the current king and claim the throne.” Tony glanced at Loki. “Your family's been sitting on it for literal eons, though.”

Loki didn't say anything, he just looked at Tony - expectantly. Waiting for him to continue.

“The High King's - or the High Queen's, for that matter, they don't make a difference there. Anyway, their purpose is to ensure the balance and peace between the tribes, and they have to be consulted in all matters that involve other realms. The current High King is Helblindi.” Tony opened the thick book in the middle, which was about Jotunheim's history, and this time stopped at the portrait of a bald Jotun, clad in both fur and gold. Tony looked up at Loki. “Your younger brother.”

Loki stared at the picture as if he expected Helblindi to crawl right out of it. “That can't be true,” he said, so quietly that Tony almost didn't hear him. When Loki met Tony's eyes again, the look in his eyes was desperate. “I killed them.”

Tony shook his head. “No, you didn't. You destroyed a part of Jotunheim, but it's a whole _planet_, Loki. Bigger than Earth, bigger than Asgard. Lots of people died, but many have survived.”

Loki dragged his eyes back to the book, and he didn't look up again.

“Your birth mother is still alive, too,” Tony said softly, turning another few pages. “Her name is Farbauti.” He pointed at the picture, more important at the markings on the woman's forehead. “Here, do you see the lines? They're like yours. Everyone in your birth family has them, and every other family has their own. They call them heritage markings.” He smiled. “I don't know why they're sensitive, though. There are a few books about Jotun biology somewhere here, but somehow I didn't find anything about erogenous zones in them.” He paused, looking at his lover. “Loki? You still with me?”

Loki nodded very slowly.

“Okay.” Tony tried to keep his tone as gentle as possible. “So. Your family is from one of the forest tribes, originally. And, as I said, there's the chief. People can run for the post as soon as they're considered as adults, for which they have to go through a ritual. They're about a thousand years old, usually, and there are a few ways to do the ritual - it depends on what sort of fighter you are, and if you are a fighter at all. Most fighters are plain old warriors, but mages are right behind them in numbers.”

Tony turned to the third book, which was about magic, and searched for the right page for a while. He loved the Light Elves for including so many drawings, really. This one showed two Jötnar - a tall and bulky one who looked like they chewed icy rocks for breakfast, and a much smaller one who wasn't bald, but had dark hair that almost fell down to their hips.

“The mages are a lot smaller in stature,” Tony said carefully. “And weaker, physically. But, here in the book, it's said that four of the current chiefs are mages, and that a few of the most powerful sorcerers in the Nine Realms are or were Jötnar. You're listed as one of them, by the way.”

He looked at Loki for a long moment, but the god was utterly silent.

“Loki,” Tony continued eventually, “look, I - I can't tell you why you were alone, that day. When Odin took you, I mean. But it certainly wasn't because you were a runt, because you're _not. _I think you're perfectly average height for a mage.” He managed a crooked grin. “Maybe even a bit above average.”

Another few seconds passed, then Loki lifted his head. Tony was shocked to see that Loki's green eyes were slightly wet, even though he probably shouldn't have been.

“They didn't abandon you, either,” Tony added quietly. “Or at least the elves don't seem to think so. The Jötnar all believe you died in the war. It looks like you were just… at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Loki's hands were fidgeting. He still didn't say anything. Tony cleared his throat and tapped on the history book.

“This tells Jotunheim's whole history,” he told Loki. “And there are a lot of wars - wars against other realms, wars between tribes, all that jazz. Also epidemics and mass murders and anything else you can think of. But, the thing is,” Tony shrugged, “you can open a book about Earth's history, and it'll tell you the same stuff. And I don't think Asgard is any better. And I also read about the Jötnar's way to raise their kids and about their thoughts on equality and justice, and about music and poetry and religion. They've got horror stories about the Aesir, you know. And it's like - when you get down to it, the Jötnar aren't _monsters_, or anything similar. They're just people, really, and not better or worse than that.”

Another long stretch of silence. Loki was breathing a little raggedly, and Tony wouldn't be surprised if he was crying. And, true enough, Loki's voice sounded wet when he finally opened his mouth.

“I still don't see the point of this.”

Tony sighed. “There's no _point_, really. I know that this - that it won't just make everything _okay._ But it's just. It's easy to fear and hate something when you don't know anything about it.” Tony gestured at all the other books. “So, here I am, having gathered a lot of information, and it's all yours. Read it - I _know_ you're curious, don't even try to convince me otherwise - and then just, you know, come up with your own thoughts on it, okay? You don't have to be proud to be a Jotun overnight, you don't _ever_ have to be proud of that. It doesn't matter in the end. I just want you to be proud of being _yourself_, because you have every damned right to be.”

Tony didn't expect Loki to throw himself at him, but it was a pleasant surprise. The force of the hug could rival one of Thor's, only that it didn't need to; it already was much better anyway.

Tony firmly wrapped his arms around Loki, not giving a shit about the slight awkwardness of the position. Loki breathed in sharply, several times, his face pressed against Tony's neck.

When Loki whispered a _thank you_ into Tony's skin, Tony responded with _I love you_, and that was it.

❄

“Oh.”

“What, oh?”

Tony sat up. “I totally forgot.”

They were still in the guestroom, entangled on the bed but still wearing their clothes, and Loki did not seem pleased when Tony moved.

“Can you not stay where you are for _five_ minutes? I -”

“Shut up,” Tony told him, getting out of bed. He crouched next to the chest and pulled two things out of it, then hurried back to Loki. “Look, here. I forgot about this.”

Frowning, Loki sat up as well. “What is this?”

“A letter,” Tony said, waving it in front of Loki's face.

“Yes, I can see that,” Loki drawled, rolling his eyes, and took the envelope. He stilled as soon as he saw his name on it. “Ah.”

“It's from -”

“I know,” Loki said, and the letter disappeared. “I'll read it later. And this?”

Tony looked down at the wooden box he'd brought. It had been in the chest, too, but Thor hadn't known anything about it, and Tony hadn't been able to open it.

“I've no idea. Figured it was for you, too.”

Loki hummed and took the box, turning it in his hands for a moment. He blinked, seemingly stunned, then stroked his fingers over the clasp, and there was a green glimmer before Tony heard a soft _click._

“Magic,” he said dryly. “Right. That's so unfair.”

Loki smirked at him, then opened the box. Before Tony could even get a glimpse of what was inside, Loki dropped the box and something rolled right out of it, off the bed and over the floor, where it was finally stopped by a book.

Tony stared at Loki, who stared right back at him, looking more astonished than Tony had ever seen him. There was a look of nervous excitement sneaking into his green eyes, lips twitching into something that was not yet a radiant smile, but would be soon enough.

“I do believe it _is_ for you, after all,” Loki said.

“Huh,” Tony replied.

He'd never seen a golden apple before.

  



End file.
